Leaning
This morning as our 4Runner clung to a cliff
in a storm, I wasn’t thinking about breakfast
or the house I grew up in or God or the dental
hygienist’s blue eyes above her disposable mask.
I wasn’t nostalgic for childhood swim lessons
or watermelon slices in the backyard or my ex’s
hands on my body in bed and the good night’s
sleep that followed. I wasn’t worried about
second chances or my cancer coming back or
the syllabi for my fall classes. It didn’t matter if
I would ever have sex again or when or with whom.
Trapped without cell phone service in the middle
of the backseat, all I could concentrate on was
my spine tilted like the Tower of Pisa. Our left
side dangling, we all leaned right, trying to anchor
our future. After an eternity of holding that pose,
I thought how tired Pisa’s Tower must be, waiting
for the ground to give way so she could relax,
which is what we all wanted in that car, six
near-strangers near disaster. How tempted I was
to give in to gravity, to rest my weight against
the man on my left, to let the woman on my right
press against me, to let physics pull us into a soft
mattress of wet leaves fifty feet below. Someone
will save us, our driver said. What he didn’t believe
could have killed us, so we leaned on his optimism,
which is really no different from prayer, and when
our angel appeared in the form of a Good Ole Boy
driving a white Lexus SUV, we praised his chariot
for dragging us out of our collective bad dream, then
watched him disappear. By then the rain had cleared,
and the day welcomed us like an outstretched hand.
in a storm, I wasn’t thinking about breakfast
or the house I grew up in or God or the dental
hygienist’s blue eyes above her disposable mask.
I wasn’t nostalgic for childhood swim lessons
or watermelon slices in the backyard or my ex’s
hands on my body in bed and the good night’s
sleep that followed. I wasn’t worried about
second chances or my cancer coming back or
the syllabi for my fall classes. It didn’t matter if
I would ever have sex again or when or with whom.
Trapped without cell phone service in the middle
of the backseat, all I could concentrate on was
my spine tilted like the Tower of Pisa. Our left
side dangling, we all leaned right, trying to anchor
our future. After an eternity of holding that pose,
I thought how tired Pisa’s Tower must be, waiting
for the ground to give way so she could relax,
which is what we all wanted in that car, six
near-strangers near disaster. How tempted I was
to give in to gravity, to rest my weight against
the man on my left, to let the woman on my right
press against me, to let physics pull us into a soft
mattress of wet leaves fifty feet below. Someone
will save us, our driver said. What he didn’t believe
could have killed us, so we leaned on his optimism,
which is really no different from prayer, and when
our angel appeared in the form of a Good Ole Boy
driving a white Lexus SUV, we praised his chariot
for dragging us out of our collective bad dream, then
watched him disappear. By then the rain had cleared,
and the day welcomed us like an outstretched hand.
March 2025
Sara Pirkle is an identical twin, a breast cancer survivor, and a board game enthusiast. Her first book, The Disappearing Act (Mercer University Press, 2018), won the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. She also dabbles in songwriting and co-wrote a song on Remy Le Boeuf’s album, Architecture of Storms, which was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY. She is an Associate Director of Creative Writing at The University of Alabama.
Art: Claire Tang, Pushing Up Daisies. Oil on canvas.