What would you have done,

Two in the morning, exhausted

And nearing the end

Of a ten-hour drive, when a car

Pulls directly behind with

Its signal on, wanting you to pull over

And suddenly you find yourself

Idling on the highway’s shoulder

Enchanted by an old-model

Beige minivan

In your headlights in the middle

Of nowhere, and before you can think

About what’s going on, there’s two Mexicans

Standing at your driver-side window

Beneath which your girlfriend

Is trying to drag herself

From sleep and understand the situation.

Though I didn’t understand

And the one man spoke, his thick face

Practically inside the car,

I no speak English.

My friend says you need help.

Flat tire busted muffler broken brake lights?

Or is he going to pull a gun

Or a knife with Jessica confused

Right beneath him. I said no,

To which he smiled and replied

Okay, see you tomorrow

And I simply sped off into the empty highway

With Jessica right back asleep

And both of us still in one piece

But me wondering why

We were not murdered or robbed

Or worse

Or why did they think

We might need help

Or was this a joke

Because in just a second we could’ve

Needed help because of them

Or maybe this was the latest miracle

From an ever-more subtle

God who saw two cars

Racing toward each other across Ohio’s

Darkened farmlands, each one’s random gas

Stops and cruising speeds kicking out

A spiritual code, which added up to a collision

At the intersection of Kenny Road

And Lane Avenue in eighteen minutes

And fourteen seconds unless one of the cars

Could be held up

For even thirty or forty seconds?

Is this something you could believe?

Do you love this world

That much?