Laurinda Lind

You died on a complicated
day in February when I drove
through a snowcloud that sucked
up my car, but I couldn't swerve.
I had spent a month screaming
for someone, anyone to see
you, to save you, but they sent
you home from the hospital time
after time since you took so long
saying so long. The flakes falling

down fast are beautiful and they
break me open and I find myself
falling too, going heavy to the ground
after four weeks hiding up in my
hammered heart. It's hard
here without you, who gave me
half myself but couldn't stay to see
me through. And even though
this is not true and you're still
across the hall in this house,

drifting off by degrees, I'm trying
to figure out who I will be without
a father strong enough to undo
February like this looking for
a space to assume next. All I
can feel is you torn off from me
the same way you must have
allowed that rift in your life since
I was born, which was the day you
brought me here and I started to die.

With a baby in a carseat that couldn't
pass inspection now, in a truck my father
drove to midcontinent to lend me for
six months, winding alone through Idaho
and then Wyoming just to see the baby's
father for one weekend where he had
to work but where we couldn't live.

With a pair of cowboys at a yield sign
who wouldn't, so I had to slam my foot
on the accelerator to save us, barreling
past Bear Lake and seeming safe
except faster and faster since the pedal
had stuck to the floor, brakes barely
helping, zooming up that hill where
the road would start to unravel.

With ripping my eyes from the road
and getting down on the floor edging
toward one hundred feeling under
the footpiece, finding a rod that had
shifted under its slot, prying it up
with frantic fingers, sensing the slowing,
getting into the seat again
yawing along the left lane.

With going up that rise and pulling
off to the right far over by bushes,
thanking the truck again and again
and God and anyone else invisible
but present, and the baby for being
alive, and whoever forgives us
for parenthood, for which we are
so spectacularly unprepared.