An act can be many things at once.
We can be deliverers or takers both.
Was he saying thank you to the airbags,
thank you to the chassis for its metal
promise to stop the impact short of
breath and body and the bureaucracy
of the outside world. Praising all of it
today. Praising the collision recalculated
that it could have been worse. Where
is poetry if it is not at the base of
the wreck. Rich said it clearly. So clear
we could see the ocean’s bottom
as if the glass had been emptied out
from one last sip. My son and then
my other son and then the one
who knows what I’m talking about.
What if I say I want this poem to bless
you, the reader. Will you take it? Will
you trust that it, line by line, truly
means to protest harm, means well?
Copyright © 2026 by Lory Bedikian. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 29, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
