My father took
one hundred and thirty-two minutes
to die.
I counted.
It happened on the Jellicoe Road.
The prettiest road I'd ever seen,
where trees made breezy canopies
like a tunnel to Shangri-la.
We were going to the ocean,
hundreds of miles away,
because I wanted to see the ocean
and my father said that it was about time
the four of us
made that journey.
I remember asking,
"What's the difference
between
a trip
and
a journey?"
And my father said,
"Narnie,
my love,
when we get there,
you'll understand,"
and that was the last thing
he ever said.
We heard her almost straightaway.
In the other car,
wedged into ours
so deep that you couldn't tell
where one began
and the other ended.
She told us her name was Tate
and then she squeezed through
the glass
and
the steel
and climbed over her own dead-
-just to be with Webb
and me;
to give us her hand
so we could clutch it
with all our might.
And then a kid called Fitz
came riding by
on a stolen bike
and saved our lives.
Someone asked us later,
"Didn't you wonder
why no one came across you sooner?"
Did I wonder?
When you see
your parents
zipped up
in black body bags
on the Jellicoe Road
like they're some kind of garbage,
don't you know?
Wonder dies.