Lukus Zuker
Originally published in The Evergreen Review Issue 111 in 2006.
Every moment sacred
every breath a blessing
every thought, cognition, feeling - ecstacy.
Since my world was turned upside-down
under the glowing glare of headlights
and the scream of a friend,
Freeway free-fall in McFarland, Wisconsin
where the cops are hot
and the medics are hotter.
And I thought of myself in a porn flick:
“Why yes, officer, I’m concealing a weapon-
mayhaps you should frisk me...”
Semi-delusional in my shocked zombie brain
(80 to 0 in a flipped car’ll do that to ya)
and almost waiting for the 3
studly medics to begin stripping me
(“looking for injuries”)
as I sat, staring and silent
in the ambulance
trying as best as I could
to tune out the incessant,
meaningless babble of my ex-boyfriend
(who’d been driving and seemed to have chosen the
“I’m-gonna-talk-about-anything-I-can-so-as-to
-belittle-and-avoid-the-trauma-of-destroying-my-
car-and-nearly-killing-myself-and-my-one-time-
lover-on-Interstate-90-in-podunk-backwoods-
Wisconsin” approach to coping).
Which had begun to grow repetitive,
not to mention inaccurate,
in his attempt to avoid responsibility -
claiming a mysterious gust of wind
(like a sneeze from God)
had taken control of the car
from the erratic hands
and lead foot
of its driver.
