Last night, helicopters churned overhead.
My husband shook me awake to listen.
The rotors chuffed disaster, bodies that bled,
but in the morning, we found no trace of them
as if we had summoned them from old age,
the fear that everything we love is slipping.
I got the paper, scanned each page
for threat, but there was only menace dripping.
Outside was fading Spring beauty, the few
birds left, the late rhododendrons,
the neighbor’s roses. So although it’s true
the helicopters unsettled, what won
was dailiness, those small pleasures that lull
us and make diminishing cups seem full.