Heavy Metal

a poem

Photo by Gene Gallin on Unsplash

---

Decades ago, my brother almost
died in a car crash—almost died
in two different crashes or maybe

it was three. One was just a deer
crashing through his windshield—
nothing unusual on our wooded

wilderness highways. The second
crash I don't remember well.
I might be imagining it. I tend

to create fiction that rises like
the sun after the truth of the moon
falls. The third crash—I know 

that it's real. My brother and his
friend, Randy, drunkenly drove
off the road and tumbled down

a steep slope. Randy died when
his Ford flipped one last time
and crushed the truck's cabin

flat against rocks. My brother,
the passenger, was thrown out
of the truck and landed hard

on a piece of grass. When
rescuers arrived at the scene,
they assumed that Randy had

been traveling alone until
they heard my brother's cries
of  pain. They looked for him

in the nearby landscape until
they realized he was trapped
beneath the truck—somehow

untouched by any metal—
because the truck had fallen
perfectly—because the truck's

bed had become an inverted
space—had become a coffin
that wasn't a coffin. Rescuers

wept with joy when they tilted
the truck and pulled my brother
from beneath the wreckage. 

He was bruised and scraped
everywhere but his only serious
injury was a broken collarbone. 

How does one explain his
survival? Stupid luck or random
fate or God's unpredictable 

intervention? I have no answers.
I only know that my big brother
should've died forty-four years

ago and didn't. I only know 
that I love him and his booming
voice. When I answer his calls,

I have to hold the phone away
from my ear because he's so 
joyously alive and always eager

to remind me of all the moments
in our Indian boy history when
death kissed us then drifted away.