In order to view this poem with the line breaks the author intended, we suggest reading it on a computer screen or in the landscape orientation on your phone or tablet.

Accident on Highway 8
Debbie K. Trantow

There are places on the highways
Plows needn’t touch, the wind
Having done their work for them.
Tonight the moon, above the howling drifts,
Hides with the stars. This, of course, is the night
My friend’s band plays in St. Croix Falls, the night
Blocked westbound lanes trap their audience home.

So I go. There is the inevitable
Accident on Highway 8. Four squads,
Two rescue vehicles. The pick-up behind me
Insists on learning nothing.
Rides my bumper, high-beams on.
I wonder who was in the van
On the tow truck’s flatbed,
Or in the vehicle in the ditch
Beyond the Jaws of Life.

* * *

I didn’t witness my brother’s accident,
Only the steel crushed
Like foil, and the substance on his returned glasses
I inquired about, then knew
Was blackened blood.
Once you’ve held such a thing in your hand
You’re not the one who stops and gawks.
You never, ever look.

—
Debbie K. Trantow holds an MFA in Creative and Professional Writing from the University of Minnesota, where she won the 2001 Gesell Summer Writing Fellowship. Her chapbook Hearing Turtle’s Words was published by Spoon River Poetry Press. In addition, she has been published in Gertrude, The North Coast Review, The Wisconsin Review, Gyroscope, Poem, and other literary magazines and journals.

Know anyone who might appreciate reading Debbie’s poem?
Why not share the link to this page?

Have you read these poems:
When the Wind Blows by Richard Eric Johnson
Pain and Pride by Thomas R. Smith

Table of Contents