[Martin Elster]

The Sun Should Be Run In

Quaking before the copper, she explains:
“The sun, so low and bright this time of day,
outshone the stoplight, made me look away.”
That bloated bloom glints off the glass-strewn stains
that decorate the intersection. Pains
unloose a yowling from some boy. She may
not drive again, end up in jail, replay
this broken scene night after night. It rains
five days a week, but sometimes heaven leaves
a gap in the cumuli, through which the sun’s
sharp talons terrorize our eyes. Now sheaves
contain her record. Life’s changed in a breath.
“Aren’t roundabouts much safer? No one runs
a roundabout,” she says and says to death.