May 19, 2024Close Call
I’m still not sure I really saw the car—shiny red
on a day that was a long green nap—go airborne.
I saw the utility pole it had hit tremble—testing
itself against electric wires that couldn’t catch it—
and fall. But the car was surely on its roof and
beyond it the reservoir was lovely as that word’s
sound, and full of springtime rain. And past that,
long suburban lawns, eighty different shades of
green, green that owned itself so proudly you’d
need a Geiger counter to say how green: crazy, a
neon green, Kelly green, green like tomato vines
about to blossom and bear fruit. So I called 911.
My husband got us parked and ran across the
street to the kid in the upside-down red car, who
we both thought must be dead. And who seemed
profoundly still but moved his hands to put them
both over his face. It was raining again by then,
tiny drops you couldn’t see, and there were wires
down on the wet pavement. The cop who helped
the kid stand up and walk to the ambulance that
arrived told us he heard those wires singing. We’d
known they must be live. I’m old, my husband too.
The measure of our lives stretches out like a silly
accordion. We understand any number of dangers,
often read the papers to find out about them. We
step carefully in these day-long dusks, this sugary,
constant May rain. But I think our country is still
a garden. Look, irises snap their purple fingers on
creek banks; somehow, kids flip their cars and live.
And somehow the wires are still singing with news.
from Poets Respond