I Was Thinking

in the narrow confines of a single page 
perhaps even of a single life, 
the made-up can rival the likely, 

the way fantastic things can enliven 
and expand the possible, but it wasn't long 
before I realized I was sounding like a man 

I didn't want to be, who wanted to enlarge 
and accumulate, deny that the elephant 
he had made out of the labor of others 

wasn't present in the room. I was thinking 
we needed something like a moral GPS 
that would guide us past the ridiculous 

obstacles bound to get in the way, 
a travel-through-your-life self-help book 
that might show us how to get 

where we need to be. I was thinking 
of a story I wanted to believe—an ambivalent, 
midlife story, hilarious and sad— 

a man I knew arriving at a house 
he thought was forever hers and his, 
and finding there a good-bye note taped to the door 

Who then wouldn't need something 
to guide him through the coming days? 
Perhaps a story in which he was better off 

without her? Or a tale I'd want for myself, 
questionable yet true, the blame
equally distributed over a lifetime? 

Whether he's a liar, seeker, or a man 
on the moon with a telescope and a dream, 
I'd want him to be part of an event 

that never happened, but was repeated 
enough that it might become plausible, 
like a Lazarus rising from the dead, 

or a virgin giving birth 
to someone who would choose to die for us. 
I was thinking America needed a miracle.