Hit and Run

Midnight arrives hauling its boxcars of hushed minutes.
On the couch you like awake, eyes sprung open.
From the bedroom your fiancée tosses a goodnight.

Outside you hear tires rasping against asphalt.
You move toward the balcony, the plum-colored sky.
You see a man by the curb, wobbling, wobbling.

One arm straight and the other skewed.
A black howl builds a nest inside his throat.
The assailant two red dots shrinking down the road.

Police cars, then a firetruck, then an ambulance.
A stretcher unfolds its silvery legs.
The howl takes flight, loops around the block.

You turn away from the evening's freak show.
Back to the couch with your blanket of insomnia.
Your fiancée in the next room, sleeping.

Remembering the first time her lips struck your body.
How you ached the day after, the day after that.
How you anxiously waited for that next collision.