The Crash

Though I walked away,
still there was something to return for.
One missing glove, a disk
left spinning in the player.
The quiet when the engine cut out,
and just the flashers ticking--
like medical instruments--taking a heartbeat
--drip line of anesthesia--how I slept
then, hanging inside the wreck,
the headlights pointing up
into the soft trees--hemlocks, I want to say--
because of where we were. We? Well, all
of us, parts of the self assembled in concern.

Still something to return for--the congregation
of that moment, the woods' cathedral
and the journey home interrupted. This then
was destination, wool coat wrapped my bones--
it would have been enough. A tenderness, a gathering.