Hit and Run
My father had left us two days earlier
and my mother was driving the rusting
Torino to my sister’s softball practice.
Kim was in the front, and I was in the back.
Mom stopped at a red light when a man
read-ended us. Shit, Mom said, enough already,
but we weren’t yet done with heartbreak because
five minutes later the hit and run driver, a tall
skinny drunk guy seemed to realize what sort
of trouble he was in, so he took off. When the
police officer arrived and walked over, my mother
punched his chest, and my sister shook her head,
said Men. The cop opened his arms when he could
have closed them. Then he did what I couldn’t do,
held my mother, told her it was going to be alright
whether he believed this or not I’ll never know.
About the Author: Steve Cushman has published three novels, including the 2004 Novello-Award Winning Portisville. His first poetry collection, How Birds Fly, is the winner of the 2018 Lena Shull Book Award.
More by Steve Cushman:
Image Credit: “Manayunk, Pennsylvania. Part of an automobile junk yard on Ridge Avenue” by Paul Vanderbilt (1938) from The Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 