Lisa

Last night I traced with my finger the long scar on my love’s stomach as if I was following a road on a map. I heard the scream of tires, saw the flash of chrome, her six-year-old body a rag doll bleeding at the seams. It is foolish of me to wish I was there before it happened, to reach back thirty years, clasp her small hand and pull her away from that speeding car that turned her organs into bruised fruit. How easily she could have missed her seventh birthday, the lit candles waiting for her to blow out their tiny flames. How easily I could’ve spent last night in a crowded bar instead, my shoulders brushing against strangers, a man on the jukebox singing his heart out to a woman with the prettiest eyes he’s ever seen.