Quick

CLOCKS OF RAIN are you all right are you hurt can you move how clearly men speak through the blown-out window undo the seat belt undo the seat belt and fall headfirst into the rain pulled from a wrecked car the side of the road scarlet apples rolling here there each one a miniature emergency a loop of cord a coat a scattering of glass hands shaking water running down someone's face dark trees behind a van brushwork on a Chinese screen a fire truck police car glaze of rain this is where it happened an ambulance with its doors opening into a throat of darkness Stops. It stops Upside down, he's moaning, blood in his hair. Broken glass grinds in my mouth. Smashed air.The many clocks of rain, slapping wipers jerk and lift of the tires the car silkily veering off the wrong way on a wet road a long, vertiginous descent frenzy of wipers this is how it comes gracefully the end of things a guardrail a ditch a life closing with a little sound aclicknothing to fear brace hard the car slams into the rail on the driver's side hooks metal flips hurtles down the highway on the roof the wheels spinning like a chase of deer Stops. It stops inside out bones showing against shadow white puzzle pieces nestled one against the other delicate skull wide-open jaw sinuous length of spine in the hospital a doctor traced smashed air. The many clocks many voices are you all right are you hurt can you move how clearly men speak through the blown-out window undo the seat belt undo the seat belt and fall headfirst into the rain pulled from a wrecked car the side of the road scarlet apples rolling here there each one a miniature emergency a loop of cord a coat a scattering of glass hands shaking water running down someone's face dark trees behind a van brushwork on a Chinese screen a fire truck police car glaze of rain this is where it happened an ambulance with its doors opening backwards to show watery marks on the ultrasound yes you're thinking it could be you it could be your bird heart beating now now now. Anne Simpsonis the author of three books of poetry,Light Falls Through You, winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize;Loop, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Poetry; and her new collection,Quick. She is also the author of a novel,Canterbury Beach. She lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where she helped establish the Writing Centre at St. Francis Xavier University. A Word about the Poemby Anne Simpson How do we write the state of shock? This was the question that came to me after I wrote the first drafts of "Clocks of Rain." In these earlier drafts, I wrote a long poem, broken into sections, in which the speaker looks back on an accident some time after it happens. But then it became a story, distanced by remembering. It seemed to me that I hadn't gotten inside the accident itself. I knew that it had to be much more immediate to work effectively. And the form had to change. I had to find a form for dislocation, something that would reveal a break in the temporal, so I came up with an entirely different poem. I cut it back, shook it up. I thought of how people get thrown around in an accident, even though they might be strapped into a car. Ultimately, I wanted the sharp realization that comes with a close call that life is not just given back, but given back differently breaking out of the poem. How the Poem Worksby Anne Compton "Clocks of Rain" is rSimpson, Anne is the author of 'Quick ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780771080913 and ISBN 0771080913.