Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment

It’s contagious, his big grin with all of those teeth. We’ve all been busy what-if-ing missed opportunities. There’s a prince in the north, a cowboy down south. In common they’ve got only my starving mouth. The mama bear startled, on her hind legs, deciding. If guns come through the door he says he’ll go down fighting. She shuffled with one hand through jangling keys. The two cubs were darling, each clung to a tree. Now the battery’s dead or the starter is broke. Her folks called it love but it felt like a yoke.