Wandering From The Wreckage
A Voice From the Wreck
By Chad Abushanab
I’m an accident on the south side of the town,
on the outskirts, where the desert holds its ground
against the streetlights’ last defenses. I’m the fire
leaping from the Chevy’s frame to smite the sky
and drain the cool out of the night. I’m the cell phone
in someone’s shaking hand, woken up
by the explosion in the street, the calls for help.
I’m an ambulance, a siren in the dark.
I’m the stoplight. I’m the kid out driving drunk,
vodka on his breath and bile in his throat.
I’m the headlights slamming final recognition.
And when you whisper names like curses
in your room, I’m the smell of gasoline in bloom,
the bloodstained moon behind the clouds.
I guzzle broken bones and busted radiators,
coolant running thick in thirsty gutters.
And if you ever manage to shut your eyes, to sleep,
I’ll wander from the wreckage as you dream.
The poem was published in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine.
While watching the late night news there were images of the newly elected Mayor of Chicago walking a darkened street with the Superintendent of Police, to see first hand the scene of a street shooting/murder, one of five occurring in the last twenty four hours. No matter how many police flood the gang-ridden neighborhoods, the attempt to offset the scarcity of living-wage jobs and the proliferation of guns is futile.
Life is nothing if not tragic. The ancient Greeks knew this. They had festivals with whole populations of towns in attendance, where playwrights offered in competition stories featuring ordinary, well meaning individuals, who with the usual imperfections of character met with the heavy hand of fate. Truth is most of the time, things fall apart, the center does not hold. It is the rare and extraordinary run of events when things turn out as fine as we’d hoped.
In a way, this is good news. It takes the pressure off. We need no longer labor under the illusion that “good things happen to good people,” or that America is an exceptional society where the most gifted and fair minded rise to success, and are celebrated by all. If anything the opposite is the norm, and the rare exception proves the rule.
So, today I’ll do the best that I can. I’ll appreciate the warmth of the sunlight, and will look for moments to appreciate in the Memorial Day celebration that I am to attend later today. Though I despise the imperious attitude, and violent policies of the current administration, I am reminded that it is unrealistic to expect to be spared the logic of power that is inscribed in every great empire, especially this one that is waning. Such is this Memorial day in memory of my fathers generation and generations yet older — a day which also suffers the present generation.
Such is life; the good and the not so good.
We are always wandering as if from a wreck.
Chad Abushanab is the winner of the 2018 Donald Justice Poetry Prize. His debut poetry collection, “The Last Visit,” was published by Autumn House Press in March 2019.
