In the pantheon of the canonized, I do not see Saint Alice.

Nurses pray to St. Agatha.

Healers and exorcists revere St. Anastasia.

Mothers, the original healers, genuflect to St. Anne.

If there is a God, my ticket of admission to heaven is the number of people

            who laughed with me,

But if God subtracts those I brought to tears, 

            what will that reckoning reveal?

I told the woman, after the surgeons closed her belly,

            that nothing could be done.

            Her bowel, now gangrenous, would rupture soon,

                        and she would die. 

            Her future, to be measured in hours,

                        held no miracle, only tears.

“ What can we do to make you comfortable?” I asked through my own tears.

She smiled.  “Well then, can I have some ice cream?”