In the Gully

by Thomas R. Moore

After I set my book aside and turned off the Sox
in the fifth when Ortiz whiffed for the second time,
I dreamed of whales, though somewhere in that sea

I heard the brief screech and clunk of car
meeting spruce and wondered at the whales.
2:00 a.m., I drove down the gravel road

to the highway and found a car breached, tail up
in the gully below, one light still winking hopefully,
a bloodless fellow standing on the tar,

the chef, he said, at the new restaurant in town —
he’d stayed to close the bar.  I went home,
called the cops: Where is your emergency?

though it wasn’t mine at all and soon static crackled
and a winch sang as it reeled in the catch.
The Sox lost.  The neighbors heard it all, rolled over,

never called, but I had seen myself careen down
that gully, head into airbag, flames rising
in the wreck, and later couldn’t find the whales.