Book of Days

Dashing to meet my husband’s oncologist,
Daybook gripped between elbow and ribs,
My shoe catches a crack in the sidewalk.
     The planner escapes

                sails

                             arcs 

                falls

           to 

     the 

     concrete.

Shiny rings spring open
Sheets strew across the sidewalk
and the grassy verge.

Too astonished to cry out
I dive to claim my dispersed days,
fingers, hands, elbows, knees
splayed like a grownup game of Twister.

     doctors’ numbers

     sermon notes

     endless tasks 

     birthdays

     jottings 

     grocery lists

     names of books

     coffee dates

All will be lost.

Then a businessman bearing briefcase,

     a nanny in N95,

     a jogger sporting earbuds,

     three teens in trenchcoats

     and a man in MAGA hat

pause in their respective paths,
retrieve my scattered days,
return them to me,
damp, dirty, disheveled
but whole.

My rescuers resume disparate ways.
I stuff my days into their binder
to be sorted
jogged
secured
within their shiny rings
when all of this is over.