grace from a bottle

It's the first day of fall. Not officially, but it's the first day I don't grab an extra layer just in case, I actually plan to wear one. Along 19th, leaves pool in the gutter. They are the brave ones. The early birds, the ones not afraid to let go. Floating down like feathers, they land on top of one another forming a brilliant puddle of orange. They'll stay that way until the rain comes and they begin their long dissent downstream into their watery grave, a pond in the center of the city.

I draw a bath after what feels like the Longest Day. I grab a bottle from under the sink with the word Grace in big black letters and pour pink liquid out of it and into the hot water which stings my feet the first few seconds. I bring a book of essays into my boat of bubbles. I read about grace amidships my pool of grace. I read about love. And God. About brothers. I read that stories live forever, stories are how we shuffle quickest toward the Mercy greater than the ocean and denser than the stars in the sky. That telling a story is like reciting a prayer, thanking God for his good grace, but not the kind that comes from a bottle.

The drain slurps the water out like a thirsty child. Bubbles, thousands in throng, cling to white porcelain until they pop and vanish, like fog along the foothills in the autumn morning.