Good Enough

There was no trumpet, no certificate,
no hand descending through the cloud
to say the trial was over.

Only the morning, blunt with light,
the kettle ticking itself quiet,
the body still here,
having carried what it carried.

I had mistaken love
for a tribunal,
mistaken silence
for a verdict.

All those years
I stood outside myself,
hat in hand,
waiting to be admitted.

But no one was coming.
No father. No mother.
No god with a ledger.
No jury of the clean and lucky.

Just this:
the small room of breath,
the pulse continuing,
the old grief loosening
like a bad tooth.

I am not a case to be argued.
I am not a debt to be paid.
I am not the ruined version
of someone else’s hope.

I am the man who lived.
That should have been enough.
It is enough.

The cup.
The window.
The ordinary day.

And me inside it,
not forgiven by the world,
not praised,
not finally understood,

but standing here
without appeal,

good enough.

It is not a little thing,
this sentence I can barely say.
It took the whole wrecked life
to make it plain.

I am good enough.
Simple as bread.
Hard as a stone
finally put down.