I have turned on my hazards and run red lights, slow,
my car first or fifteenth or last in a long blinking line,
wipers squeaking off-beat because processions are always damp
and cemetery mud slick. I’ve nearly slipped, but held tight
the elbow of a widow whose curse was bleeding and then long life
as she crouched to drop letter, flowers, a pack of cigarettes.
I’ve watched a parent tuck a stuffed bear in a tiny coffin
and seen a stranger stay behind just to curse a grave.
Hazards on again to community hall,
then all on our unblinking ways.
I ran red lights, hazards on, while my own water spilled and spilled,
soaking the driver’s seat of the car we bought to be parents in,
scared of my baby who for months had been just a beautiful theory. In practice
I was already a terrible mother—never once did I think of our reckless danger,
how the horns sounded around us, how I dodged two accidents,
wanting only to arrive where someone could take charge of my body,
of our bodies, and maybe give me something to take the edge off.
When we left for home two days later there were no lights
but I could hear the rhythmic flashing of my panicked heart.
I threw on the hazards and I ran the lights
to be there in time to say my piece, to send home and bring home.
I scream emergency everywhere I go.
–
Jessica L. Walsh is the author of Book of Gods and Grudges (Glass Lyre Press, 2022) as well as other collections. Her work can be found in Rogue Agent, Lunch Ticket, RHINO, Bear Review, Cotton Xenomorph, and more. She teaches at a community college outside of Chicago but spends as much time as possible in her rural Michigan hometown.