Dream


I try to steer him around his grief
but he asks direct questions.
'What have you managed to do with my son?'
He drives the van, his son crushed beneath its upper half,
to the language school, which is undergoing rebuilding.
The Beach Boys are playing on the radio.
I almost run along the corridors of partition walls
and exposed nails, till a German voice is audible through a wall.
I cannot tell her quickly enough
I need to get to another side,
a place where I know my way
better than him.

I saw the near-accident. The boy
slid on the falling back of the truck, almost
to the ground. His feet teetered
inches from the road. 'A miracle,'
I said, as his mother gathered him up.
She and he both disappearing beneath the moving roof.

I sat in the front of the truck,
boy and mother trapped.
Then it occurred to me
to try to find the father,
check for a pulse.

He knew how to drive
and he knew the direction
better than me.