Derailed on the Way to a Halloween Party
BY BRIAN CLIFTON
It was the season of car wrecks and continual blood flow
to our sex organs.
I spat him out. I drank him in.
I called to the Lord, and the Lord
was silent. You were driving, he said
as he zipped up and buckled his belt.
Over the horizon, the sirens flashed like thousands
*
of miniature sunrises
in the mirror—my face painted
as a corpse. Breathe easy, he said
and put the car in park. In the headlights’
stray beams, the Volvo’s crumpled nose,
the glass lodged in our palms
like a new skin. Our world
became very small. It rested on my tongue
*
and turned into a milky geode.
Then from the shadows, the people descended
and tore the driver from the destroyed
vehicle. The police cars ululated in the dark street.
I gagged on the fumes. When my mouth opened,
another row of teeth gleamed under the set I had
*
painted on my lips. He had already fled.
I watched. In my mind, the city
swallowed him as lovers sometimes do.
