After the Crash is about violence and how it affects children the most. In this poem the woman is getting violated directly, but the child is the one who will carry it around forever, unless the mother finds the strength to leave. I wanted it to be a poem about strength, and show that even in the face of destruction, there is always a way out.

AFTER THE CRASH


My thighs bruise a furious purple,
welts explode, then fade away
like thunder on trees.
 
His fist ricochets, leaves an opaque white mark
like the imprint of our daughter’s slight hand in clay
framed in the front hallway.
 
Seven years I’ve been here,
lucky number seven.
Lucky for me if his road rage catches my shoulder
instead of colliding with my face.
 
Seven the age of our daughter,
the one gift he gave,
though at the time she was named
Accident,
just his hard seed forced into me
a result of icy, wet conditions.
 
Now she waves a fairy costume wand,
steps forward with question-mark eyes
a witness to the hit and run.
 
I lie in metal, warped and twisted,
in the tunnel of silence she blinks,
etches on her heart all details to recall later
 
so she can detour,
outline in yellow highlighter on her map
which direction to take.
 
Hard lines are formed
A boomerang, I return.
 
After the crash I stare into hard headlight eyes,
my firm, capable hands,
analogous to my daughter's
hers marked in clay, forever small.
 
I seize her power and take back my own.
 
My hands swell and I rise,
we drive away.
 

This poem placed second at the Poetry Board League’s January 2004 contest.