-the accident with airbag deployment-

let's wander-off to a space in time just for a moment,–– whether

heaven or hell or the semiconscious distance between them.

it doesn’t matter when you’re punched in the chest by a mitt into a cloud

of industrial material.

––it settles over and around me, settles on my face, my fists, coating the leathery

wheel, powdering my shirt, painting my shoes, and finding its way

into my nostrils where the stiff little hairs can't keep up.

I'm alone inside the stuff of clouds, but for the guy in the other car who

looks like he’s in a trance, expression as blank as the animals, and through

this elapsed moment in time, this six or so seconds, I’ll travel with him because

he’s ascending inside his own cloud of airbag.

––looks to be an older form of cloud, bluer, a higher density, a coarser cloud,

not nearly as forgiving as my own cloud whose engineers have refined

the substance of its particles, advancing the science.

––but there he is, the other guy,–– powderpuff in blue, artificial gardenia

of route 6 west, drifter alongside cloud-to-cloud on our way to look upon

the faces of lost generations.

––but the scene around us slows its spin and soon enough, clarity regains its measure

of time, and I’m of this world again, powdered like a bunting, and so’s the other guy.