THE DRIVE HOME

What would you have done,
Two in the morning, exhausted
And nearing the end
Of a ten-hour drive, when a car
Pulls directly behind with
Its signal on, wanting you to pull over
And suddenly you find yourself
Idling on the highway’s shoulder
Enchanted by an old-model
Beige minivan
In your headlights in the middle
Of nowhere, and before you can think
About what’s going on, there’s two Mexicans
Standing at your driver-side window
Beneath which your girlfriend
Is trying to drag herself
From sleep and understand the situation.
Though I didn’t understand
And the one man spoke, his thick face
Practically inside the car,
I no speak English.
My friend says you need help.
Flat tire busted muffler broken brake lights?
Or is he going to pull a gun
Or a knife with Jessica confused
Right beneath him. I said no,
To which he smiled and replied
Okay, see you tomorrow
And I simply sped off into the empty highway
With Jessica right back asleep
And both of us still in one piece
But me wondering why
We were not murdered or robbed
Or worse
Or why did they think
We might need help
Or was this a joke
Because in just a second we could’ve
Needed help because of them
Or maybe this was the latest miracle
From an ever-more subtle
God who saw two cars
Racing toward each other across Ohio’s
Darkened farmlands, each one’s random gas
Stops and cruising speeds kicking out
A spiritual code, which added up to a collision
At the intersection of Kenny Road
And Lane Avenue in eighteen minutes
And fourteen seconds unless one of the cars
Could be held up
For even thirty or forty seconds?
Is this something you could believe?
Do you love this world
That much?