The Miracle
When she was an infant,
they thought she’d died.
They called for the priest,
the curandera, the tias to wail.
They called for the county to record.
The faintest of breaths blew from her infant lips
made purple by the almost slip of her small life.
But she gasped, coughed, heaved
Back into the world; saved by a miracle
Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah
They prepared for her death, not her recovery.
What do you do when no one dies?
And that’s how it started
She was almost not here.
Face down in the crib, angel bound
Found face up on the blanket
He had seen it happen—
His baby daughter almost died
The memory was somewhere in his head—
Hidden for decades somewhere before the years
She stopped talking to them.
He looked around the room at the nurses,
At the restraints on his arms, lifted up slightly,
Said her name.
Margaret Elysia Garcia grew up in and out of southeastern Los Angeles. She’s the author of four chapbooks of poetry: When the Ground Tore Open, Choosing Words, You in the House of My Heart, and Natural Menace. Alzheimer’s Cul de Sac is her latest poetry venture she hopes to publish soon. Some of her chapbooks can be found at aphasiapress/megarcia.
Copyright © 2012 by Margaret Elysia Garcia
Randomly Accessed Poetics 
One doesn’t quite know how to say to spite and to care!