Posted tagged ‘sonnet about near accident’

Magpie Tales – “Oncoming” (Sonnet)

October 23, 2011

This is a sonnet I revised in connection with the weekly prompt of the “Magpie Tales” blog, hosted by Tess Kincaid.  Tess posted a great photo of a city street, seen both from a car and in a car’s rear view mirror, but I have re-drawn the picture (above) to fit a little closer to my poem.  (Still, not a true fit, sorry!)

Oncoming

There were one, two, three, four, trucks and we’d hit
sparks, some devilish configuration
of torque and stone, radii and slip,
that spit the car from its lane as from
the sea, only to buck and plunge it through
the waves of semis; to the right, the poles
of overpass pulled us to some untrue
North, as if to catch whatever souls
the trucks might miss.  We were on a visit
to a grandmother, but I can’t recall
a later meal or kiss, only that minute
on the road there, the unreeling miss and haul
of grill, glass flashing glass, my father’s swerves–
the way space looks, time feels, when fate uncurls.