ALEX
SMITH
TRAGIC
ACCIDENTS
From a Letter to Brian Stockton, MD:
I will preserve
your face in my brain,
your body, for the sake
of your voice.
A windshield, unharmed,
was removed and junked
along with your ugly
story.
In essence, a sentimentality,
often lost on the
ingenious
idiots who filmed your
heroic leap from the
scooter
before impact,
will now be bullshitted
into
existence.
From A Dictation to Jonathan Grazer, Esq.:
“He is not so much Turkish
as he is French,
and as surely as the
squirrel
runs under the tire,
your chest will
light upon my weakened
hands
when your legs are
astride.
I will gaze upon them, take pictures.”
Traffic Camera Number One:
You are a Lothario,
your magnet infinitely
delayed.
My groin is a pavement.
You, loosened gravel or
a dusting of acorns,
(please forgive
my ambivalence) or a
ring
around my yielding wedge—
Triangular and splitting—
again splayed and angry
against
me. I have booze to
spill on your silver Scion.
You have rusty things to deposit
under the skin of my
silver Scion.
From my dictation to Officer 68SZ:
If a true auto were to find me,
know that I would allow
him some of my stock,
but
only if it were faster
than Ferraris.
I’d love it not deeply,
but sincerely.