I'll probably get tired of writing car wreck poems before I figure out what I really need to say.

Perhaps I had to lose the car
to rediscover the person I was
from the summer I had to walk everywhere I went.
Oklahoma sidewalks don't provide quite
the same scenery as cobblestone streets,

but in those days I was strong enough
to go for miles with everything I owned
upon the back that recently survived
a wreck that should have killed me.
I walked out with little more than

a few spots of blood on my shoulder
shaped like the islands where I found
myself alone and smiling.
Not quite the stigmata but
maybe no less powerful a mark.