thinking about cicadas

Steven Vigil-Roach

We’ve all had the car crash

                                                                                                                daydream.

On the highway
or at a stoplight,                      it is always loud
in the initial impact.                                The glove box has confessed all of its contents, and you realize you’re going to miss

                   your appointment. Romanticized isn’t the right word

but in your mind, part of this is happening

                                                    in slow motion. The airbag is blossoming, broken glass becomes cicadas

singing in your ear. There’s a momentary
disorientation, maybe this time the car has rolled
over.                                           Then the silence becomes roaring

                                   and you wonder where the cicadas
have all gone too. You are squirming under the weight of the car or

                                           just the weight
of yourself.                               I don’t know why

we have all imagined this,  I hope
it says more about how much we miss
the cicadas               than it does about the car crash.