What A Miracle Is

Once I crossed the Sierra Madres

with a bus driver named Arturo

who had one arm

and a stick-shift bus.

Sometimes between the

the shift and wheel Arturo’s

good right arm would

pause to make the sign

of the cross toward a portrait

of the Virgin that banged

the windshield from a string.

The lesson here is that

never is a miracle more than

beating the percentages.

Perhaps Arturo still is

waving down the

twisted camino

at each shrine

along the way.

“What’s your hurry?”

always he will ask—

“Do you think you

don’t have time to

find your grave?”