The Average Driver Will Be in a Car Accident Once Every Eighteen Years

The Average Driver Will Be in a Car Accident Once Every Eighteen Years

The Average Driver Will Be in a Car Accident Once Every Eighteen Years

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

 

Moonship comes when I’m on the road,
A/C on, music on, the inside

still in, then—zam—wind, unshielded crescents
of moon, the body gone, tearing through

space at 60 miles per hour. A green grape,
slender skin, the way every

body must be. Goose-egg on my head,
shards on my face like stars,

she didn’t mean me harm when she turned her body
from the Tollway to look at her baby. Who means

the other harm? The self, so soft. The car, a skin
across the self. Did you expect today to pay a toll

to the sky? Once my friend was hit
terribly and feared it was just the dress rehearsal

for what was coming. Imagine
a long truck dragging behind it the future. Pay.

Pay a single pound
of your body, spine to skirt, rib to rib to rib.

An ex who loved me a little but in the end not
enough teased that all my poems end with love and oh gods

of glass, gods of blacking out and coming back—
may it be so. My love, my one and only love

said she wished upon herself instead the hit.
In a perfect world,

we are all each other
all the time. It isn’t perfect now.

But isn’t she me and give me strength, I am she,
turning around facing my child.

Can we count on you?

In the coming election, the fate of our democracy and fundamental civil rights are on the ballot. The conservative architects of Project 2025 are scheming to institutionalize Donald Trump’s authoritarian vision across all levels of government if he should win.

We’ve already seen events that fill us with both dread and cautious optimism—throughout it all, The Nation has been a bulwark against misinformation and an advocate for bold, principled perspectives. Our dedicated writers have sat down with Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders for interviews, unpacked the shallow right-wing populist appeals of J.D. Vance, and debated the pathway for a Democratic victory in November.

Stories like these and the one you just read are vital at this critical juncture in our country’s history. Now more than ever, we need clear-eyed and deeply reported independent journalism to make sense of the headlines and sort fact from fiction. Donate today and join our 160-year legacy of speaking truth to power and uplifting the voices of grassroots advocates.

Throughout 2024 and what is likely the defining election of our lifetimes, we need your support to continue publishing the insightful journalism you rely on.

Thank you,
The Editors of The Nation

x