by Tim DeMay                                                                    

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                        When I fell off my bike in third grade, I had faith

not in my father who asked if the bike was broken

but in my mother who looked but could not see

the piece of tooth on the ground. I’ve found

5          smaller things than that: contact lenses I’d find

hugging the rim of the sink. Faith

kept them, even when I saw

only the invisible edge break

the drain lip. Broken

10        bones then found

me. See

faith,

the unbroken

kind that sees

15        what can’t be found

by oneself, watch it find

healing and recovery, the simple faith

in doctors and the world. I saw

it. Live long enough and there’s something broken

20        that exists beneath your bones, or in them broken.

Is it painful? No, not painful like the pain found

in chipped teeth or bent arms, but a dull pain seen

between sight and an eternal drain that ends where we don’t know.