The wreck is a weird
symphony: the exploded
air bags rumpled as
a just-empty bed, the way
the metal bends like her
jacket that day at Brinton
Timber, the buttery smear
of the engine smashed up
to the skeleton.
            There were two
dents for her knees, a cracked
plastic brassiere, and gaps
where the fine curves
of the doors won’t spoon,
and a delicate timbre when
the control knobs tumbled
from the console.
                        The paint
curls as paper from the book,
one window tossed to ice
cubes, one streaked like hawk
feathers, and the shattered
truss sets the hull down,
like a woman being beaten
who clings to the ground.

– Jared Pearce

Author’s Note: “What sounded” was a poem that came from my going to a wrecked car in order to retrieve any further property from it; we had been hit head-on. The final image comes from my wife who, when we got her off the road and who, we found out later, had two broken legs, seemed to cling to the ground before collapsing there.