I died in a car crash two days ago 

Was unrecognizable 

When they pulled me from the gears 

No one's fault, no one's bottle 

No one's teenage pride or throttle 

Our innocence is all the worse for fears 

The other walked away alive 

Arms wrapped now around his wife 


My lover sits, the silent eye 

In a hurricane of warmth and word 

My mother trembles with the sobs 

Whose absence seems absurd 

My sister shouts to let her see 

Through the cloud of crowd surrounding me 

My colleagues call for silence in my name 


I died in a car crash three months ago 

They burned me until I glowed 

And crumbled to a fine gray sand 

Now I am nothing, everywhere 

Several breaths of strangers' air 

And all thoughts ever written in my hand 

They plant my tree out in the yard 

It grows but takes the winter hard 


My lover holds a knife to wrist 

Says tomorrow comes, hold on a while 

My mother tosses in the sheets 

And dreams me holding my own child 

My sister plays our homemade tapes 

Laughs as tears run down her face 

My office door now wears a different name 


I died in a car crash four years ago 

My tree drinks melted snow 

Just eight feet tall a pale and fragile thing 

Bee stings beaches bright vacations 

Sunburnt high-school graduations 

A sparrow healing from a broken wing 

This year a glimpse of second chances 

Tiny apples on my tree's branches 


My lover hears the open wind 

And crawls blinking into the sun 

My mother leafs through photographs 

And thinks "yes she was a lovely one" 

My sister can't decide her truth 

Asks aloud what I might do 

In a conference hall my brief efforts engraved 


I died in a car crash 

A lifetime ago it seems 

A decade or two or three 

They've come out with a new design 

Bars and bags front and behind 

My fate now an impossibility 

Safely packaged hurtling down 

The highway hardly make a sound 


My lover very much alive 

Arms wrapped now around his wife