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.
“Lisa” from A House Waiting for Music by David Hernandez, published by Tupelo Press. Copyright © 2003 by David Hernandez. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of Tupelo Press.
Source:
A House Waiting for Music (Tupelo Press, 2003)
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Poet
David Hernandez
b. 1971
POET’S REGION
U.S., Western
Subjects
Nature,
Relationships,
Health & Illness,
Living,
Love,
The Body,
Heartache & Loss,
Realistic & Complicated
Holidays
Valentine's Day
Born in Burbank, California, poet and young adult writer David Hernandez earned a BA at California State University-Long Beach. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Hoodwinked (2011), Always Danger (2006), and A House Waiting for Music (2003), as well as the young adult novels No More Us for You (2009) and Suckerpunch (2007). With humor and precision, Hernandez’s poems investigate the ordinary as it . . .
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