No one is denying that of this world
we have made a million joyless
things: landfills, bumpstocks,

caste. In roe, plastic gristle;
in children, lead. In case,
the suicide note.

                                 How is it,

then, that we tarry on this side
of the ultimatum, unready
to depart this cruel world

made for joy?

                             Well, there’s this:

sometimes when we say in case,
what we mean is that we are bluffing

on the strength of the bees
who stuff their leg warmers
with gold dust, and sometimes

when we say hope, we mean small fry,
herring just hatched, an effervescing
pond. My claim on joy is this:

once a pediatrician asked my son
if it was his middle name.
So when I say this world

I mean wonders and I mean
signs taken for wonders, all of it.
I mean the grocer who wagged

a wet pompom of cilantro at us
like it was hyssop. You can’t tell me
that water wasn’t holy, as the water

is holy when a man not unused
to rain gets caught, biking home,
not just in rain but in more

than a downpour, when his mild
epithets turn to whooping
on his tongue. Even later, he will

not be able to tell it without
laughter, without incredulity; he will
not say cloudburst or torrent;

he will say, The heavens opened.

Sometimes they do. Sometimes
a child at three writes a note

in unproven runes and tapes
it to the sling where her infant sister
bucks. When I say hope, I mean

that when their mother asks,
the toddler reads the runes:
Cordelia, this world is made for joy.

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