Mom had to have her Pall Malls.
Don’t cross until the light turns red.
We spot a red light but don’t understand
it’s for cross-traffic at University Avenue—
never mind that a pickup is barreling toward us.
I dawdle behind my seven-year old sister as she
blindly follows Mom’s vague instructions and
winds up flat on her back on the pavement—out cold.
Mom screams bloody murder. I don’t understand
her, or maybe I just don’t want to remember.
I turn to see her outline: a petite, emaciated woman
wearing a fitted print sundress, her long, black curls
pulled tautly into a ponytail, spindly arms flailing at
the truck driver like the wings of a foxed-chased hen,
feet frozen to gray wood planks on our column flanked porch.
By the time the ashen driver delivers my sister’s small, limp,
scraped-up body into Mom’s trembling arms, she comes to.
After a trip to Mercy’s Emergency Room, we’re all
in the living room. Mom sits quietly, her jade eyes vacant.
Surrounding laughter competes with my pounding heart
as I study her, cradled on Dad’s lap, her head bandaged
like a mummy’s, his arms wrapped about her like wings.
My sister smiles faintly, not her usual teethy grin,
clear aquamarine eyes teary, then looks away.
I am unable to block the image of her with closed eyes;
her motionless body lying in the street overrides—
replays inside my head like a reel-to-reel film strip
that snaps and dangles when it reaches the end.
– Mary E. Kocher
