And the woman who answers sounds like Meryl Streep

doing a Czech voice or a Russian maybe, and she stays

with us until the EMT from Sacramento arrives, weedwhacker

and oxygen tank in tow. My brother by now has opened

his flask of Jameson, and his daughter sat down four turns

back and started singing Taylor Swift. She’s not fine at all

and it’s the only way we know she’s fine. We were all fine

until no one else passed by. I’ll tell you that once in school

I was the monster in the Frankenstein haunted house

and now I feel terrible about how I reached for the mother

whose child was already wetting herself. My green hands

and her bare, brown arms when they touched—static shock.

So now I know what it’s like to be in the near dark and afraid

that around each curve is another dark row and a Steven King

face ready to tell you: you are alone and this is the last thing

you will ever see. Hell. It’s a Sunday afternoon and church

was the last place we went before we drove over here. Insurance

will pay for the ambulance ride. But who will explain to God

that when I am afraid, it’s not Him, or a hymn, or a prayer

that comes to mind but the final lyric in a pop song, the face

of a cartoon monster telling me the only way to be saved

is to call for help on a phone. How sweet the amazing ringtones

of grace, straight to my ear from the darkening skies.