Accident in Virginia, 3:45 AM
Dear Rose,
I found your son.
He’s okay if that phrase comforts you.
His head is turbaned up and his hands are mittened
and the EMT is kneeling, asking him questions.
Maybe not the questions you’d ask.
The ones for now and the ones
you’ve had for years in some deep squirrel hole.
Maybe he’s broken down enough today
to answer where he went.
The emergency lights are kind of beautiful,
coloring the streaks of rain, all lit up
like when it seemed every street celebrated Christmas.
The firemen are machines of grace,
turning water into smoke, and fire into more night.
The ambulance blues lighthouse the road.
The semis look so mammoth, the asphalt so sea black,
it feels like shipwrecks dashed here among us.
Your son is now standing against his cab,
which is peeled like a pop can.
His eyes glitter in the blazelight.
There’s a miracle in this you’d say.
But the other boy is so mute.
His face covered in black snowflakes,
what a dream to look and look into the night.
He is at camp, him half zipped into a black sleeping bag.
His canopy is the overhang of his rig
which looks like a child thrown thing,
raked open by some godhand.
Everyone steps around the mute and the crush.
But your son knows more acutely thinness.
He can’t look away enough.
Good Luck,
James
I really like how the letter format is so inviting and emotionally gripping. After the first two lines I was caught,invested. I thought the poem did well, mostly, to complete the contract it made by adopting the letter form. The language is less symbolic, looser and simpler than most of your other work and this seems a conscious decision to work in a more communicative form. I thought the form broke down a bit when you talked about the dead boy. I know it later has referenced meaning for Rose's boy, but I was a stretch to believe any witness would want to tell that to Rose. Seemed to lack compassion. But saying that I think the stanza about the dead boy is almost more important than the form. There were also a few places where I thought an "or" between images would have differentiated them better. In some places you imply connection between images "godhand","childthrown" with syntax. Do you want to equate those images? but awesome stuff. I only critique because you ask. oh and lurk lurk.
ReplyDeleteAnother gem, Best. Funny that I read this on the very day that I wrote a letter poem myself. Which I'm now going to re-write in an attempt to match your poet-writing prowess.
ReplyDeleteAaron,
ReplyDeleteYeah, as we've talked about, I think you're right. I need to rethink this ending. I want a greater comparison between them and a better reason for comparing and showing "Rose" the dead boy. As sort of a gift to say how close her boy was almost the other one.
Liz,
The letter form is interesting. It's something to definitely try. It gives a real immediacy and intimacy to the form. It also limits the ways you can speak because you have to pretend that you're actually writing something they can understand. I find my greatest poems come from the limitations I set not the freedom I have from free verse.
James, you sure have a way with words. By that I mean you have an uncanny gift to paint a visual picture with your words. This poem was hauntingly beautiful to me. I could see it as a slow motioned-muted scene from a film. I don't know if that makes sense. But it does to me.
ReplyDelete