a poem by scott coykendall
The Bruises on Tabitha’s Arm
What were we bickering about on that road
to Maine? My spending? Your navigation? Now,
I can only recall the little blue car sneaking
from its sleeping driver’s grip and falling
into our lane. I missed him,
almost.
Time only seems to slow down in a collision.
Really, our brains’ filters instantly offline,
we just perceive so much more than can reasonably fit
into three seconds: the strange physics of metal
and mountains spinning; trajectories and their implications;
the checklists and the reconciliations. Through a constellation
of dimes and quarters and sugar packets and the toll transponder
loose from its Velcro and the lottery tickets unclipped
from the visor and the mushroom cloud of coffee
and the airbags burning my forearms as they exploded
in our faces, I reached, too hard, for your delicate arm
only wanting to make sure I ended up in whatever place
you were heading.
Scott Coykendall lives and writes in New Hampshire where he is Professor Emeritus of Communication at Plymouth State University. He taught journalism, podcasting, and other communication and writing courses. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Bowling Green State University. His work has most recently appeared in Black Fox Poetry Magazine, Centripetal, The Cossack Review, Groundwork, Midwest Quarterly, and the New Hampshire Poetry Showcase.