Doom
Janine Canan
No one's fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen...like car crashes.
--Adrienne Rich
After the crash, you sat plastered against the seat,
ranged like Garbo, like distance herself:
knitted cap and dark glasses, long angle of cheek,
mouth faint, evocative, lavender collar over
a slim run of torso, fine swinging lines of legs, a Kali hand.
What a hellish moment you articulated as I desired you
inappropriately, admiring your effective arrogance,
how you twisted me round your mind telling me
to back off--a strategy for divine comedians
who explore at leisure the backroads of soul.
I guess that's where I met you, crouched so I couldn't see
your face, meekly whispering, bare ankles disappearing
into your hiking shoes, slashed wrist turned over
in my palm for clinical evaluation: I held it a long time
as the car turned over and over and over.
