imagine, a car crashing
into something, anything...

ambulances do not exist

there is a deep gash across
my forehead where it hit
the steering wheel

i'm on a highway or a road
or a street, somewhere, anywhere
with no other cars around

it is night-time,
carolina backwoods darkness

but i can see the pain
it glows red inside my mind
i crawl from the wreckage

brittled knees on asphalt
i count the paces silently
one year of solitude for
every breath,

then suddenly
dimmed whiteness bright
against my eyelids
and as sudden, the feeling
from my arms and legs
leaves

it come closer, closer
closer, i am blinded
first by darkness, then
by light, no sound, only
light

and in a blink of one eye
darkness again
i count the speckled stars
falling from my closed eyelids

the feeling comes back
as does the pain

i turn around to what i believe
is behind me

and retrace the years
through breathing

this is what it feels like
to lose what you never had


***********************************

myself is sculptor of
your body’s idiom:
the musician of your wrists;
the poet who is afraid
only to mistranslate
a rhythm in your hair...
-E.E. Cummings