It’s another incidence –

shock of metal on metal –

as she flings her van door open

and snags my passing car 

the moment I’m making my escape

down the breast clinic’s narrow drive.

That scarlet screech

as steel scrapes a length of paint

is the cosmos come close-calling

to ensure I don’t assume I’m safe.

When you add them up: the tumors

that proved benign, the fevers

that broke in time, the blood gush

stanched; the swerves, the brakes

that failed but dumped me softly

in the farmer’s waiting field;

the undertow that took its time

to spit me out; the ruptured gut

and the surgeon’s skill;

the anesthesia dreams

I almost didn’t wake from…

It’s peculiar to survive one hour

as this accidental universe

repeatedly breaks skin, or

—like that dog who once leapt 

from his front porch and clamped

his jaws onto my thigh – 

leaves you standing

in your bless-éd jeans, bruised

by its out-of-nowhere steely kiss.

--originally in Atlanta Review

© Copyright, Susan Cohen.
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