Gratitude

If I were the young mother
pushing the Mercedes-Benz of strollers,
calmly but with fiercely
controlled breaths discussing with my mother
via cell phone as I walked--my only
exercise, my only sanity--why Darren
and I really could afford what she described
as a crushing mortgage,
I’m sure I would have stopped
talking, walking, mouth open with a word
half in, half out, staring;
but would I have said, “Mom, I’ll
call you right back”; would I have hung
up and pressed my suddenly trembling
fingertip, with its shamedly-bitten nail,
to the numbers of the phone in order:
nine, one, one?
Would I have said, in answer to the businesslike
“What is the nature of your emergency?”
“There’s a woman screaming
out the window of an old orange
Chevy truck: ‘Help me,
please help me, please
call the police,’ so I did”?
Nevermind Mom, Darren, or Godforbidthebaby,
asleep in the shock-absorbed stroller:
there was a woman, and she
was wearing a pink cashmere sweater, and she
was screaming. Would I have?
Doesn’t matter. She did, and when the cops
came, I thanked her.