I was sitting there and I heard the crash:
glass, and crumbling tin and cement.
it was 7:30 p.m.
I walked outside and down the hill
and there it was around the corner --
a 1973 sports car
light green,
he had laid it way up there in the air
it was 12 feet off the ground
he'd taken out 2 thirty foot light standards
and they had crisscrossed
laying up against the wire fence
the fence was bent
and the 1973 was up there
he'd almost gone into the reservoir lake,
but actually he was down on the street
he'd been thrown or pulled from his car
was in his mid-thirties
pencil moustache and brown suit
he hadn't made the curve
drunk or doped he hadn't
made the curve
he must have been doing 70 to take down
those two cement poles.

the car was sitting up there in the air
a gentle white smoke coming
from under the hood.
there were 14 people standing around the man.
then he tried to stand up.
he stood part way up
then fell.
"oh," said a young girl,
"why don't they hurry?"
then somebody came out of the house with a blanket
and they covered him with it
and then the ambulance came
a red and white job
waxed and cool.
they got out and opened the doors and
I walked off.

© Frank Silvanski