THE AUTHOR AS MAN WHO SEES THE MECHANIC GET KILLED, TRAPPED BETWEEN THE CAR AND THE WALL IN VACANCY

—After the film by Nimrod Antal

 

When man becomes heart palpitations, drowned, stilled

                  in greased hotel lights, too many bulbs out, caught between

the loose shred of skinned existence, its break, its shred

                  & faulty mechanics. That's when we see our lives in play.

Someone should have a camera. The wind just mosquitoes,

                  strident buzzing in the ear, prick & blood-suck as victory

before one swat, before we're covered with ours, the transport

                  of others. The car was a battering ram, the mechanic there

& then not there, all in a matter of seconds. I am witness

                  & to blame. I am the one who does nothing. To watch

& to wait, the weeds now swaying, ditch dry from drought,

                  collapsing from my knees. I should show myself. I should

ask what happened. Crying. Lord, the crying. I cannot live

                  in this place. Someone will call. Someone will end up alive.

KEITH MONTESANO is the author of the poetry collection Ghost Lights (Dream Horse Press, 2010). His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Hayden's Ferry Review, American Literary Review, Third Coast, Blackbird, Crab Orchard Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. He currently lives with his wife in New York, where he is a PhD Candidate in English and Creative Writing at Binghamton University.

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