Mercy

I merge into surging highway wind, my backseat baby babbles to the Tim-Tams macaroni yogurt burger cookies and bananas, and a crackling alto announces the world this hour:       buildings burst in a distant port,       scoundrel stabs doctor in a clinic past the mountains,       furious inferno feasts on trees, towns just south of here.

I cruise under red, misspelled bitterness on the bridge—I can’t breath. Death. I think death as I brake past masked faces in even spaces at the bakery. I dread an eternal six feet apart like I dread the six feet under.

Stop, signals the traffic light. Through the windshield is my world this hour, beckoning me to befriend the brilliant corner daisies, the silent watercolor sky. Behind, my warm, curly daughter with a dried-applesauce nose coos to road roller, restaurant, Ram, tips her bottle, then chews her toes.

I smell smoke: a harbinger of the flames that may shatter my tomorrow. But today, they showed me mercy.