a poem about life during wartime—in the spring

things in the road

driving home from the market
prime fillet and avocados
in bags beside her
she sees a thing in the road—
a thing in the road is always a bomb
that detonates the moment
her car makes a shadow on it.

in minutes she’s made headlines
like “meat and murder,”
imagined the flash of light
and resultant rubble—
blood and strawberries
and smoked salmon salad,
flesh and meat both well done.

now she’s in the hospital,
a Dalton Trumbo heroine,
coming upon the thing in the road,
bracing herself and squinting
as she drives over the bomb
drives over the bomb
over the bomb

she turns right down her street
the day warm and brilliant
the grassy median a kind of heaven
exploding with star magnolias.