There was snow that afternoon covering the road <br />which twisted toward the secret <br />of water, the mysterious surge <br /> <br />of sludge & loam, the living <br />Mississippi, unlike the rest of the Midwest, <br /> <br />drawing itself through landscape. There was an appointment <br /> you were keeping <br /> <br />in Moline: a cheap hotel, booze, a little blow. On the Lower <br /> East Side, a woman <br /> <br />spills her martini, makes a gesture <br />like erasure, or regret. It was almost Christmas. <br />In the rear view <br /> <br />suddenly, the car you will always describe as oncoming <br />must have slipped into a skid <br /> <br />and now, rising up over the bank, <br />it startles you—that reflection. In Moline <br /> <br />the maid corners the bed, straightens the clean <br />line of sheet. Almost Christmas. On the road, <br />swirls of snow. On the road <br /> <br />the car hovering behind you, a witness, <br />unfortunate & so unlike the audience permitted <br />the distance of fictions, the artifice <br /> <br />of plot. And worse, of course, the law <br /> <br />of cause & effect: I looked up, <br />it started to fall. You must attach <br /> <br />subject to verb, must say <br />I saw, and did, in your rear view, the car you’d thought <br /> nothing of, <br /> <br />the gray sedan lifting slowly from the common snow, <br />turning, and the accident <br />always there, about to happen.<br /><br />Kate Northrop<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/iowa-amp-other-accidents/
