Minor Miracles

How many men
roll roulette?
How many women cast
broadcasts spiraling from the city
like light from switchblades

as if a network could form itself
from sky if it had enough
desire to imprint itself into being?

Who will write the manual
How to Save a Man from Drowning?
If love is an uncommissioned artwork.

If light is careful embroidery,
if the pencil shavings of stars
are the tracks of animals

cast from pages of storybooks
in confetti from yesterday’s birthday,
who will sing the songs

of objects?
The sand belongs to no one.
The box store employment applications,

the billboards gold and turquoise
like all that is human
in a motel at twilight:

cigarette burns, the clay colored carpet,
a man’s suit jacket hung in the closet.
On the boardwalk of desire

how many ring
the soul at the desk?