for Ross Gay and Patrick Rosal

Call the calibration that makes life possible—life
and more life—grace. Grace is the premise:
the earth on a star’s hearth, the tantric breathing

of trucker and oak, the neutrality of water, the pH
of soil, the innumerable conditions for being
and love. And grace is the plot: to be forgiven

before you call yourself sorry. Once, as I lumbered
around an ice rink, a stranger flew up behind me
and lifted me by the elbows, and we coasted for yards.

And, yes, I was at fault, I had cut him off,
I figured it out as we lapped his girlfriend,
which isn’t to say knowing made me feel any different

by the time he set me down; I was as offended
and exhilarated as when he scooped me up.
It’s just to say that sometimes the stranger is God,

and to say I’d call that grace, that force that saves us
without our consent, that gives us life and more life
without our asking.

                                      Of course there’s also the grace

we call out for: sanctuary, life jacket, medic, last rites.
There’s also, I mean, mercy, grace made scalable,
grace with handholds—scratch that, grace with hands.