[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Max

This one is challenging me. I like to begin my first readings of poems by seeking the literal meaning: The first three lines have the N in a city, then in L4 we have a distant car accident with a tree and boulder, which suggest the countryside. Based solely on sound, the N concludes that the probably drunk driver has just had a car accident serious enough to change the course of his life. The N concludes that the driver can take consolation in knowing the reason his life was ruined. I have no idea what to make of “nag the flop,” but in context it seems to mean something like “haunt” or “bother.” The mention of “no shattered glass” puzzles me, too. Is the car crash merely a metaphor for some other catastrophe that derailed the “tipsy wretch’s” life?

Second pass I try asking questions and making connections that require inferences. Why is he walking late at night, presumably alone with no stated destination. Why can’t he sleep? Where is he? He seems to be in a city, but the accident, impossibly distant for him to hear, seems to take place in the country. Is it a memory? Was the N the “tipsy wretch” who caused the accident, or was he a victim of someone else’s DUI crash. He seems to have an emotional investment in the accident’s life-shattering consequences. Did the N hear a crash far away and remember a crash that ruined his life years before? Or did the memory of the moment that ruined his life pop into his mind, complete with sound effects?

I like “the regret/ before-and-aftering” and the ambiguity of “but then again—/it hit him—.“ The fracture in L12 visually suggests the moment when his life was derailed. These lead me to believe that he is reliving a traumatic experience. I suppose it doesn’t matter whether he was the driver or the victim. The point of the poem seems to be the irreversibility of the disastrous consequences.

Glenn