The Crash
When I was 7 I burst through our front door
flying from my bike seat to my customary chair
at our dining room table —
hands unwashed
brow still sweetly sweaty
juice moustache from an after school snack dressing
my upper lip like a rash
pink and painful looking
a small stick stuck in my blond hair
my dad was at the table with us,
with my mom and brother and me.
Along with side dishes my folks passed between them
secrets in unspoken languages misunderstood and unfathomed
by 7 year olds.
They had something to tell me
she wanted him to tell me
and I just kept on eating.
While I stroked a butter pat across my broccoli
my dad cautiously told me
that Heather had been in a car accident
and I guessed he meant Heather Lockwood who sat near me
in Mrs. Hird’s second grade classroom —
a girl I never liked very much
because her hair was quite pretty
and because of a pair of white leggings she wore
that were particularly flattering.
Heather was the sort of girl with very good manners
who was endlessly on task
liked cats
never shouted
could wear white leggings without spilling
these things I privately coveted
and obviously lacked.
And I wondered why he was telling me,
saying that her pelvis was broken,
since I didn’t know what a pelvis
was, and clearing his throat before saying glass
in her pupils, in her retina, in her eyes.
I wondered if she was dead
because possibly you die when your pelvis is broken
and glass is in your eyeballs
and you’re only in second grade.
But it was not Heather Lockwood after all.
It was my Sunday school teacher
who had been in the crash
whose pelvis was broken
whose eyes were damaged.
Heather, my Sunday School teacher,
a high school girl whom I figured to be as old
as my mother since ages, like pelvises,
are not very clear while you are 7,
a plump girl with yellow crayon hair and blue eyes.
Heather was the kind of creature
who appreciated loud, attention-seeking girls,
girls who rarely listened and bravely disobeyed.
I had planned to be exactly like her when I grew up.
But with the eyeballs and the pelvis
and what came along with them
I was not so sure what I wanted to be anymore
which was disappointing since
I’d already made up my mind