Before I deal or receive a hand

29 flashes in my cribbage mind

and every poker hand’s a royal flush.

 

Before I throw the covers on the bed

I think it’s possible for them to fall

exactly into place. They never do.

 

Each game is perfect until a batter

reaches first in one of those seven ways

or doubles, triples or touches ‘em all.

 

Every swing’s a hit if not a homer

in my mind before the pitch. I think of

“Prefect rice. Every time,” a mother’s love.

 

Our love is perfect even when it’s not

because I feel it so. I know why not

but feel what could be. Why not expect it

 

if I’m not upset when the usual,

the mundane, takes its place in the present

and let its pre-glow infuse moment?

 

It’s not the same as confidence; I know

the sheet will never fall in even squares,

the 29 will likely go undealt,

 

but how random it will seem, not really mine,

when that Perfect Thing comes along and I

have not foreseen, foretasted, forerelished?

 

When perfection doesn’t happen, as it

almost always won’t, that hopeful vision

is not erased by disappointment.

 

It was there. Felt as if the miracle

already had occurred, salving the burn

of truth, as I anticipate the next

Great Moment of Impossibility.