By Pam Baggett

Featured Art by Eliza Scott

Switch on the car radio, music falls out of the air
into my ears: James Brown, Joni Mitchell,
Jim Croce. Old gold. Plus, when I got in my car,
it cranked like it does every time, so many miracles
in that I can’t even count them. Traffic lights
that help us get along with one another,
scent of roast chicken rising from my grocery bag,
which also contains the most delicious bread,
whole wheat with flax, sesame and a hint
of cherries. That someone thought to turn wheat
into bread, miraculous. Yeah, I know, I just
had to start on a heart pill, but it’s nothing,
a little electrical nuisance, no effect
on longevity. And yeah, my best friend
has a hurt so deep and wide whole oceans
pour through it, and her story’s not mine to tell
but jeez, what a soul-shatterer. Yet even she
watches bumblebees. She swears they’re her favorite
miracle. So aerodynamically complicated
in the way they get off the ground you’d think
they never would—flapping their wings
back and forth, not up and down—yet up they go.
She says if they can beat gravity she can too,
and I gotta tell you that to see her dressed
and laughing, hear her singing with that voice
that sounds like water tumbling over rocks
in some ancient river, water that’s passed through
some murky cavernous places but has emerged
into the stunning light of day, to hear her sing again
is one big fat black-and-yellow buzzing miracle.

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Pam Baggett is author of Wild Horses (Main Street Rag, 2018). Awards include an Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artist Grant and a 2019-20 Fellowship in Literature from the North Carolina Arts Council. Poems appear in Atlanta Review, Kestrel, Poetry Daily, Poetry East, and Tar River Poetry. Work will soon be displayed on the Lake Johnson Nature Trail in Raleigh, NC.