STRETCH
1970-
At Queen City and 9th
one Friday night
driving east, Mills caught
in a flash at the corner of his eye
a black limousine
closing fast
at a perpendicular,
and headed
straight through him.
No honk then, no scream.
He checked both sides,
ahead, behind. Intact.
Sill there, mailboxes, houses, yards
his headlights coined,
trembled over
and pushed back,
and friends in the backseat
unbroken, unimpaled,
and not noticing
anything auspicious.
But ever afterwards
Mills was dead: things
hollowed; people
walked past him and did not speak—
of course, he only
constructs this
afterlife that’s now
and here and does not
weigh a thing. Not
like he’s fundamentalist.
More like the tense
of being here relaxed
and Mills sprang free.
The limousine went south,
and he to a party
where things undone
met things unsaid
and make no noise
and ask no questions.
When you’re dead,
it’s hard to say
what else is dead.
Or not dead exactly,
but the elegance
of a thing that ends,
and afterwards,
the paradise a man,
a cool, forbidden shot
of if it’s ended, why not?