beautiful thump
she made a beautiful thump
off of the back of my car
i was young
i thought, oh, how poetic
then i thought about jail
when i got out of my car
she was already trying to get up
she must’ve been eighty years old
and to make a beautiful thump like that
her daughter looked at me
she said, you hit my mother
i said, but look she’s getting up
the daughter implored her mother
to stay on the ground
because the old woman kept bitching about her knee
my knee
my knee, she said
like it was some kind of goddamned mantra
people came out of their homes
business owners came out of their shops
carrying cordless telephones
someone shouted, i called the ambulance
and sure enough you could hear the sirens
i wondered how i’d get along in prison
i thought how she made such a beautiful thump
but the ambulance came
and the cops came
the ambulance took the old woman and her daughter
away
the cops asked me if i was on drugs
how fast i was going
i told them the old woman was crossing behind me
when i was trying to back up
i didn’t tell them how beautiful she sounded
when she thumped
the cops made me come to the hospital
the docs already had the old woman in the bed
she was sitting up and shaking her knee
the one that had hurt so bad before
the cops made me apologize
which i meant…at first
but then the woman started calling me a menace
she wanted my license taken away
she wanted me to have a record
she told me that she was going to sue me for everything
for loss of enjoyment of her life
i thought about all of the people that i could sue for that
reason
bosses
parents
siblings
priests
my friends
the girl i was dating at the time
i told the woman that i was sorry a second time
although by then i didn’t mean it
she said, sorry isn’t good enough young man
i’ll see you in court
then i left and went and sat in my car
i thought telling my parents about this
about the girlfriend who would bitch me out
because i’d be too hours late
getting to her house
i thought about the beautiful sounds that people made
even when they didn’t want to
then i lit a cigarette
and thought the whole world could go to
hell.
No comments:
Post a Comment