What I Might Have Been If I Had Been There

  With you in the front cab, the windows up cigarette smoke filling the red canvas seats, radio turned up loud to any song by Journey which I might have known you liked if I had known you. If I had been there with your seat- belt undone, empty cans of Molson Canadian and some thought about what you would see if you had made it through. If I had been there, wings of crickets and fireflies headed straight for us, the mines both hid behind and beyond only one more day’s drive home. What I may have been if I had told you how I wanted to be. We could have at least bled together, bent cut metal with our faces in awe-struck guises our arms frozen by headlights and I could have woke you before the smoke or the horn of a semi with no one in the cab but a driver, alone like you. If I had been there to fall with you as it struck our tin-can chassis as the wheels jack-knifed and our heads broke just above our necks and the crushed grass stamped in hot engines, our legs snapped behind our backs and the blue-red gyroscope sirens like party lights. If I had talked you out of sleep I would not be here living my life without you, partly saved to remember us.