Vienna Teng: Passage

I died in a car crash two days ago
Was unrecognizable
When they pulled me from the gears
No one's fault, no one's bottle
No one's teenage pride or throttle
Our innocence is all the worse for fears
The other walked away alive
Arms wrapped now around his wife

My lover sits, the silent eye
In a hurricane of warmth and word
My mother trembles with the sobs
Whose absence seems absurd
My sister shouts to let her see
Through the cloud of crowd surrounding me
My colleagues call for silence in my name

I died in a car crash three months ago
They burned me 'til I glowed
And crumbled to a fine gray sand
Now I am nothing, everywhere
Several breaths of strangers' air
And all thoughts ever written in my hand
They plant my tree out in the yard
It grows but takes the winter hard

My lover puts a knife to wrist
Says tomorrow comes, hold on a while
My mother tosses in the sheets
And dreams me holding my own child
My sister plays our homemade tapes
Laughs as tears stream her face
My office door now bears a different name

I died in a car crash four years ago
My tree drinks melted snow
Just eight feet tall a pale and fragile thing
Bee stings, beaches, bright vacations
Sunburnt high-school graduations
A sparrow healing from a broken wing
This year a glimpse of second chances
Tiny apples on my tree's branches

My lover hears the open wind
And crawls blinking into the sun
My mother leafs through photographs
And thinks, "Yes, she was a lovely one."
My sister can't decide her truth
Asks aloud what I might do
In a conference hall my brief efforts engraved

I died in a car crash
A lifetime ago it seems
Been a decade or two or three
They've just released a new design
Bars and bags front and behind
My fate now an impossibility
Safely packaged hurtling down
The highway hardly make a sound

My lover very much alive
Arms wrapped now around his wife