"Cross your fingers"

If the refrigerator light
stays on in the dark, and if
just through the door,
there's a national park, and if
deep in the center, there's a sacred grove -

if a tree falls by chance on a crock of gold,

Will a rainbow break out, arc and hold in the sky
as a kind of alarm?
Will there be an outcry
to shock us from our beds?

So we rush to the door
- throw it open, grab hold
of the bottle we know
is the coldest and best
for emergencies, now
- and pour.

We have found

that in trouble and doubt,
we have had to learn how.
And at least, we have tried.
Who can sleep anymore?
Since the luck has run out.
Since we looked out, and saw
we've let every tree
fall.

Did the first make a sound?

But how could it?
It had already died, after all
after all,

after all.

"It was not meant to be
after all,"

she lied; closed the book

by its cover,
her eyes on the world, her heart
on the end of the story,

and sighed.