The sign blinked
then it was gone.
Buckle up, it scolded,
flashing construction worker letters
from its asphalt perch above us.
Deaths last week:
26.
As we passed underneath it,
my dad's left hand on the wheel,
me folded into the passenger seat,
I wondered whether the wind whistled
just a little too hard today
whether the boulder above us
would give in to gravity
whether we would become
numbers 27 and 28
on this cold Tuesday afternoon.
(I would go first,
my bones yielding to the soft white pillow.
My dad wouldn't mind.
He knows I hate the number eight.)
Even after we passed it,
life occupying the cavities in my lungs,
my dad drumming Snow Patrol into his jeans,
I felt the weight of the number press into me,
the bodies of all 26 people.
My English class is smaller than that.
Crumpled. Drained. Limp.
The gasp of fire-
Gone-
Quenched by the tears of loved ones
I will never see.
He was her everything.
She was his first-born.
They were best friends
But now they are strangers,
Lost-
Forever.
Time is a car crash;
Passing one is inevitable.
To me,
there will never be a number bigger
than 26.
