Young men and cars offer

the joy of coming of age

with the risks of tragedy.

There is the monstrous injustice

of the death, banal statistical

references, and life goes on.

And the loss goes on. It does not end.

Prayer and afterlife, meaning beyond

anything a parent, or loved one,

or considerate passerby, can suggest

have their value, and comfort.

See the pain in a different way,

with a deeper understanding,

within the heritage of experience

each soul builds as life goes on.

Fine. Even helpful. The loss remains.

It is immutable, irreconcilable,

full of a despair suffering a

random, heartless god, or none,

nothing, just the void of death.

But it is the loss that is the void,

not the death; courage can come

from it, cultivated in memory

or little rituals of remembrance

as a survivor’s stiff duty, possible

by the edge of love that is not

some stepchild of despair,

that is a force of its own.

As to the young man who lived,

the car destroyed, walking away

with barely a scratch, another

car, another year, another day;

there is no answer to that, either,

only the great, inexplicable

mercy of a second chance.