And I told him, “No, sweetheart.
You gave us the world.”

Now the angels are outside, breaking
bottles Momma thought she’d recycle.

The wise men trip an alarm
at Walgreens, drunk on Godiva and rum.

All our lives we’ve been told come December
a baby could save us—

even the high school volleyball captain
believed it—

though her middleweight boyfriend saw two lines
and pushed her down the stairs.

Now unto us, this night, in the city of accidents,
a body becomes its own planet if you let it—

leave it to weed,
it grows what it wants.

Outside the city limits, the hungry are filled
with orange chicken from a heat lamp; the shepherds

tend their pocket holes, loose change,
and this, little soul, is the promise your GG

will sew into your sleeves:
May you never stand on Grandma’s driveway

reading license plates for danger:
Winter Wonderland, Crossroads of America,

anything south of The Leader in Flight
and you run.

Never will you sit broke down in a Buick
on Ballenger testing the integrity of the locks.

You will not dream but do—Queen Esther
with a hand-drawn map to the king’s chambers.

Even if Jesus could not evade what humans do,
you will make a go of it,

the story of the desert
written in your muscles,

says a city’s walls are not stronger
than its trumpets, little one—

the promised land is real.