Accident

Youth is brighter than death

And invincibly stupid, invincibly lost

Beneath invisible owls crossing

The reservoir at night. See us snake

Up/down the hills in the little black

Nissan, invincibly earth-bound,

Fleeing heaven with radio fracturing

"Over the Hills and Far Away" into polkas

And sports announcers and color-dead

Static and Oh Yes our own screaming

As that little black Nissan rocketed

Through the rails, the reservoir fence,

Down/up into the thick of woods 

Surrounding Newark's drinking water.

The police came, the ambulances,

The fire department. "Those boys

Are lucky to be alive," a fireman said.

"Only last week, a truck driver went off

The same spot, and a fence post run

Him through the heart."

Sometimes I close my eyes and they open

Into a secret story, a video play. I see

The underbelly of the little black Nissan

Ripped open by the fence pole. See

The guts snake and split—everything pops

Out. A sneeze, the vivisection of rainbows:

Tentacles and sores and a viscous liquid

Gunking up the works. Scratch marks 

Where the branches tried to fight. Brain

Matter of the transmission, no curves.

Nothing changes, even if history's shook

Up and all the pieces rearranged. Destiny

Is a motherfucker, no two ways about it.

Headlights blinking eyes looking out

Into the void of their own declarations.

Tires soft as dewy grass, the treads 

Unicursal labyrinths.

But I remember the brakes squealing,

The burnt oil stench, the headlights flashing

Into the trees. They held up their branches

Like hands holding back Fate. I remember

How the womb of the night held us in, told

Us we were gods in Jell-o, forever held

In some psychotic dance of hope. Laughing.

We were laughing as we flew into the end.

Tied to nothing, an assumption of infinite

Lives: unicorns with Roman candles in place

of horns; an insult to civilization itself. Sparks

Fusing in the air, laughter fusing in the air.

Brighter and bigger than death is youth,

But invincibly stupid, small, a tiny spark

In the dark woods, far away from purring

Stars, waiting for the wind to kiss it awake.