Vox Populi
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Yehoshua November: Driving Back to College in a Storm
And as I entered the onramp and the highway curved,
I realized I’d forgotten the wayfarer’s prayer.
Rear tires backsplashed a wave
across my windshield. The universe blurred,
pinning me between a rock embankment
and a Greyhound bus.
When I came to, the nose of my Corolla
faced oncoming headlights, and the Greyhound was gone.
Because the evening was a surrealist,
a sponge cake my mother had packed in the trunk
stood upright on the highway pavement.
“A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall”
played from the speakers.
“It doesn’t make any sense
that you are walking,”
the state trooper marveled,
resting a white glove
on the green sedan’s mangled metal.
Three weeks later, I climbed a rented ladder
to your dormitory window, a poem
and ring in my breast pocket.
The wedding hall printed the afternoon groom’s
scripted initials beside yours on our dinner mints—
a reminder that another nearly took my place.
Copyright 2024 Yehoshua November
Yehoshua November’s books include Two Worlds Exist (Orison Books, 2016) which was a finalist for both the National Jewish Book Award in Poetry and the Paterson Poetry Prize.
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I had to re-read this poem straightaway. I was gripped by the imagery, the cake standing upright, even after the collision, their initials, the transience of life writ large. It made me shudder because I have been thinking recently about the sheer coincidence of everything, the happiness that is, in spite of our vulnerability.
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Thanks, Helen. I love Yehoshua’s poems for the ways he brings spirituality into the mundane details of our lives, making them shine.
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This poem covers such a large story in only twelve couplets — very powerful — that surprise at the end, that turn, is so unexpected and moving.
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I agree, Laure-Anne. His work reminds me of yours in its efficiency. He’s able to cover a lot of emotional territory with very few words.
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Life. Poem
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yes.
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That’s our nephew- very proud
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