Crash Positions

We used to beat it to death:
watch for deer belabored
at the close
of every gathering,

badgering each other
to heed yellow diamonds
jumping with deer silhouettes—please
spare us
the doe-eyed destruction
of a loss.

At dusk we'd gather
by the door
one family at a time—each its own storm

of finding and tying shoes
they’re out there, so watch out
it's that time
of day

of course
accidents happen,

even to us, we who impart
lukewarm caution
at night's end
like a Tupperware of leftover pie—

my grandma's SUV,
totaled by a stock-still
straggler,

is proof our favorite way to say goodbye
is to avoid the unavoidable.

My dad would periodically yell:
crash positions! and
my brother and I
would fold our arms in front of us, tucking
our heads behind them, backs straight and
feet flush
to the floor, the motion coalescing

into muscle memory, etched like
zinc, scratched until picturesque
and all we see: our bones smashing

under setting sun, family
in black and bereft
of us, we see this deadly dusk

for what it is and there is
hope: we are watching,
we are watching,
we are watching

Ginger Harris is an emerging writer who lives in Denver. She has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she also studied creative writing. Her work is forthcoming in The Rising Phoenix Review.