When all other faith fails
My faith in the God of chance
Persists

It’s hard to pay attention
Driving the familiar route
But the unexpected sign
Brings me fully alert

“Emergency scene ahead”
Warns the red diamond sign
On the median

I’ve never seen such a sign before
In half a century of driving
In five countries

The traffic slows
Crawls
Stops
As we approach the flashing lights
The seemingly random
Scattering of police cars
And two utility vehicles
Many yellow vested uniforms
The sirened ambulance
Speeding past in the opposite lane

And the metal
Twisted tortured metal
Strewn across the road
Two wheels
Separate and lonely
Disconnected forever
From their only reality
The only reason
For their existence

No recognizable vehicle
So a motorcycle
Was slaughtered here
Most likely 
By a speeding car or truck

My stomach clenches
My forehead tightens
With the start of a headache
My breath comes fast and shallow

Just yesterday
A cousin posted an old picture on Facebook
Two of her brothers
Mike, bearded, handsome, 20-something
And his little brother Chris
Probably about 6 years old
Towheaded confidence
Sitting in his big brother’s lap
Mike the oldest of nine
Chris the youngest

Mike
Dead in a motorcycle accident
These 50 years
Chris
Killed in a motorcycle accident
20 years later

I follow the policeman’s gesture
And turn into a subdivision of townhouses
Thirty years living in this city
And I have never turned here

I follow the car in front of me
Following the car ahead of it
Following the car ahead of it
Following the car ahead of it…
The long line
Stretching ahead in this
Blind man’s bluff game
Of follow the leader
Our dance macabre
With death so very near
Through the twisting tarmac turns
Past towering townhouses
Until I know where I am
A familiar road
A red light
A panhandler
Who wears a bandana mask
And a baseball cap pulled low
No threat intended 
Just COVID and sun wise
On this sweet spring morning

I don’t even read his handwritten
Cardboard sign 
I just roll down my window
Ask his name
(Scooby)
Tell him mine
Hand him a 20
And chat with him until
God turns the light green
And encourages me to move on

I am no Pharaoh
But the God of chance
Led me here
And softened my heart