Smash.

This one guy

sideswiped that other guy

and didn’t look back.

As I turned I saw

their green glass littering

the black asphalt.

At the crosswalk nearby

no one seemed

to have noticed.

.

When I saw

the banged up car

this morning,

pulling in to what

is usually my spot

in the group parking structure,

I had only one thought,

that the car,

looked like my father’s

from my middle childhood.

.

I remember that car.

Before it was his,

it was my mother’s,

and I think it may have been

my uncle’s before that.

It was never mine,

my dad sold it,

yet here was its twin.

.

This car (like my father’s)

was white.

This car, like mine,

was a little banged up.

But while mine has some

(fixed) troubles

in the front,

this car,

had a visibly

scraped up rear.

.

I know the driver,

I wish I didn’t,

but I need not

look back

with regret.

I faced my problems

head on.

.

I was the one

who learned to drive

first.

I had that parking spot

first.

But when I followed,

the car so much

like my father’s,

out of the group parking lot

and into the sun,

I was behind.

When I switched lanes,

I was ahead.

.

As I emerged from

the parking lot

and into the street,

I saw the sideswipe.

Smash.

The two cars

hit each other

and neither looked back.

But I looked back.