when time was large
you crawled
small between an older sister
and a brother
in the backseat of the family

your father drove
drunk while your mother
argued directions from a map
that crashed the car in a field
closed far from any road

so you learned to walk
out of the fog of morning
into the sunfall of day
and thought you’d left the wreck behind

but in a small hour of afternoon
you see from the haze
thickening gray to the east
that car coming
sudden as an accident
silver with its headlights off

it strikes you
in the middle of a lost moment of evening
and drives down the boulevard of your bones
where the blood swims around it
envelopes it

and you can only wait
for it to come again
racing out of a curve in the dark
into the blind intersection you stagger into
because you haven’t learned to drive