My neighbor shows me a picture of Jesus 
on the cover of Time magazine
that he carries with him everywhere
encased in a plastic jacket—
the kind used to keep safe 
pages of term papers,
letters from the President or Pope.
“It saved my life,” he says
“Look at the date, my birthday,”
he points to the corner,
tells me how he saw Jesus 
in the hospital waiting-room
then decided to have the surgery 
he’d earlier refused.

Because I saw a horseshoe
on the tail of an airplane I was ticketed
to board one early morning
alone, a continent from home,
I walked across the tarmac,
climbed the stairs.
Afraid to move, 
I had looked for a sign
the plane would take me back to Kansas,
not to hell.
And once, wading a vacation ocean,
I met a child 
who introduced himself as Jake
and reached for my hand.
Jake. My grandfather’s name.
I saw resemblance—
the smile, the same dimple in his chin,
and I thought he’d come back to me
in the form of that child.
For a moment, I believed
I could grasp everything—
the conservation of matter,
the oneness of being,
everlasting life—
hold everything in my hand,
that the lines on the palm 
and the freckles on the back
had the same predictive power
as the Zodiac,
the same protective balm
as Jesus on the cover of Time
encased in a plastic jacket.