"I'm Ready"

To honor National Poetry Month, I am sharing some of my work each Friday. This piece speaks to an aspect of life that none of us like to think about...an aspect that cannot be controlled, of accidents and pain, an aspect that makes us live through things, against our will, things we think we cannot endure. But we must, and we do. These things are "life" as much as any other aspect.

I'm Ready

I need to talk about
the sick feeling
when the child
comes in contact
with the front of my
car
making a dull thud
like a ripe melon,
his face turned toward me
and full of horror,
looking through the glass,
his eyes pleading,
“Why
are you doing this
to me?”,
his pitiful body
thrown from the
small bicycle
like a rag doll,
as though it were a thing of no
consequence.
In that moment
when these two
things collide,
the air gives up
a shudder
like a thunderclap
and, like a train
de-railing,
the course of life,
even the orbit of
the planet is
irreversibly
altered
forever.
Like a glass
tottering, rocking
at the edge,
then free falling,
hovering for one
brilliant second
to sparkle,
to mock
your distance,
your inability to save,
he was too far away.
The fabric unravels.
The tracks are far behind.
I need to tell you,
I couldn’t stop it.
Now I understand:
if I have to
back into a corner
crying, blindly pulling
finger after finger--
if I have to
lie on a gurney
gulping solid air
while doctors search
for ways to
let me breathe--
if I have to be
sutured without
anesthetic--
then do it.
If I must hit
seven year old boys
with my car--
if this is the way
things must be, then
I’m ready.
I’ll grip the wheel harder.
I’ll bite down on my tongue.
Go ahead and do it.
And I will
tell about it.

©JEF 1992