Crash

death fanned out through the network

as idle fingers reaching for the hub

found a mangled mash-up

of chastened flesh

             and brazen steel

red Audi woman and HGV man

(their names did not register

but it's not like I knew them

or can claim to have cared)

for death spelt not this

abrupt bloody coupling

             or silent resound

but the absence of movement

and a road that hummed

with the tin-can-chatter of

thoughts out sped by

             time's standing still

spaces become confused

Philae on her side

300 million miles from home

             stutters in the dark

as quiet descends over the motorway

and the flow and clot

of light-years bleeding

            like oil

a vision of earthly grace

he drives she drives it drives

the drive drives

the drive crashes

and our world it folds inward

nothing but the night

and a face staring back

from the polished-stone black

of a screen rendered cold

             as a slab

November 2014