“The Average Driver Will Be in a Car Accident Once Every Eighteen Years” by Nomi Stone (Poetry ’17)

The Average Driver Will Be in a Car Accident Once Every Eighteen Years

Moonship comes when I’m on the road,
A/C on, music on, the inside

still in, then—zam—wind, unshielded crescents
of moon, the body gone, tearing through

space at 60 miles per hour. A green grape,
slender skin, the way every

body must be. Goose-egg on my head,
shards on my face like stars,

she didn’t mean me harm when she turned her body
from the Tollway to look at her baby. Who means

the other harm? The self, so soft.