Loch
Raven
by Craig Kirchner
Picture
a sports car, blue sky,
a few puffy white clouds,
the
road on the side of a
mountain,
straight
up on the right,
straight down on the left.
Green
Camaro, 350 horsepower,
new Michelins,
cruising
at about 70 per, no
other cars, no cows—
beautiful,
right, wins the
commercial Emmy.
Now
picture, same mountain,
midnight,
trees
and brush on the right,
lake on the left,
same
green Camaro, 70 per, four
drunks
come
out of a blind curve, a
cop
putting
up flares in the middle
of the road—
beautiful,
right, like a
Stephen King novel.
Rich
and Elf said later they
knew they were dead,
Denny
in the front looked like
a stroke,
as
the Camaro plowed sideways
into the brush on the right.
Elf
threw the Ouzo out the back
window,
but
the whole car smelled like
licorice, and the
metal
in the mouth that comes
with a crash.
The
cop was in shock, pissed,
but standing,
he
didn’t have far to go to
tell us not to move.
The
car had a few scrapes, no
damage.
The
worst was the wait, sitting
at a 45% angle.
the
accident up ahead needed to
be cleared,
the
door wouldn’t open, hitting
the road.
The
damning interview which
seemed
would
end in jail time, started
with—
“This
isn’t your car . . . it’s
your girlfriend’s?
Well,
your move . . . done any
stunt driving?
Look,
never come back to Loch
Raven.”
Negligent
Driving, beautiful
right, like an Oscar.
Craig Kirchner thinks of poetry as hobo art, loves
storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He has had two poems
nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. After
a writing hiatus he was recently published in Decadent Review, Wild Violet, Last
Leaves, Literary Heist, Ariel Chart, Cape Magazine, Flora Fiction,
Young Ravens, Chiron Review, Yellow Mama, Valiant Scribe and several
dozen other journals.
