A Small Good Thing

By Molly Connors

Hope is a small good thing
the first yellow crocus in the snow.
Hope always wears new shoes
and is reflected in rainy streets and sidewalks
mosaic-ed in leaves.
Hope often lives in places
where neighbors know each other’s names
but it also keeps unlikely company.
Hope knows how to be scandalous.
Make no mistake- hope will not be taken for granted
or left behind. Hope is not a fool.
Hope is a contagion,
a plague of possibility that incubates
in the blood, causing hot pink fever
to glow on the foreheads of its victims.
I thought I had little talent for hope
that it appeared to be a gene I lack.
I’ve learned it all comes down to effort.
Hope is hard work, and not for the squeamish.
Hope takes practice; no one tells you how it works
you have to imagine it on your own.
My hope is a plumb line
always true to itself and gravity
this is its only job
everything else is gravey.
My hope does no one’s bidding.
It has teeth and will use them.
Sometimes it’s best to back away
with arms outstretched and palms
open to the sky
and wait.
Most of all,
hope is not the one grand gesture.
Hope is something you have to make
all over again, every single day.
It all goes to hell otherwise.