Infidelity

The two-toned Olds swinging sideways out of

the drive, the bone-white gravel kicked up in

a shot, my mother in the deathseat half

out the door, the door half shut--she's being

pushed or wants to jump, I don't remember.

The Olds is two kinds of green, hand-painted,

and blows black smoke like a coal-oil fire. I'm

stunned and feel a wind, like a machine, pass

through me, through my heart and mouth; I'm standing

in a field not fifty feet away, the

wheel of the wind closing the distance.

Then suddenly the car stops and my mother

falls with nothing, nothing to break the fall . . .

One of those moments we give too much to,

like the moment of acknowledgment of

betrayal, when the one who's faithless has

nothing more to say and the silence is

terrifying since you must choose between

one or the other emptiness. I know

my mother's face was covered black with blood

and that when she rose she too said nothing.

Language is a darkness pulled out of us.

But I screamed that day she was almost killed,

whether I wept or ran or threw a stone,

or stood stone-still, choosing at last between

parents, one of whom was driving away.