Car Wreck
Ana Pugatch
You remember blowing blood
out of your nose, feeling
the right eye puff into platelets.
Jupiter’s storm nestled on
a sallow plain. Black-eyed Susans,
a killjoy with their staring.
You lie on the grass smelling
peppermint (spearmint?),
leaf-maps gridded, reptilian.
Later the doctor makes
her own map: an orange globe
of the photographed eye. Veins
fork across the fiery steppe.
Concussed, you snuff the wicks
between dream-tide and wake.
The room’s glass darkens.
Your vision will dwindle
with each passing year.
Ana Pugatch is an MFA candidate studying poetry at George Mason University, where she teaches composition and reads for Phoebe Journal. She taught English in China and Thailand for several years, and she has a master’s degree in “Language and Literacy” from Harvard. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Esthetic Apostle, Thin Air Magazine, and Cagibi, among others.