Emerging Voices

Speeding in Lyman

By Jeremy Springsteed

Even now he says when he sleeps he dreams
that other world. The crash long behind him.
When he wakes he still can't tell, thinks he brings
his mother money, but she is dead. He drinks gin,
says it blurs his head so he doesn't let out screams.
In the coma, three months, slept and lived in

the world his head made, worked and ate and
(it was all very reasonable) drove
the earth bone Wyoming, searched big city glam-
our. He went to the ocean, took off his clothes and dove
into the water. Lived in LA,
one day in Cheyenne he woke up. His face felt cold.

His friends said that on impact the car was bent,
said the highway patrol found him and sent

the wreck away. But those ninety days he
believed himself married, even now, everyday
he can't be sure if what he hears is sea
or cars, if he can put his hand down and say,
“this is real.” When he went left reality
pushed straight ahead. Smokes, he says yesterday

he watched his yard turn to sand, (still very real)
when he talks of the accident his eyes
go far away, he says he lives there still.
The mind is fragile, it can't handle two skies.
(The second is much more believable.)
He believes that years from now, when he dies,
that California sand will be real

again. He will live that warm beach life, confused.
Blindly walk sand, wondering which life is true.

 Jeremy Springsteed's recent publications include Chasms Vol. III, City Art Youth Creativity Celebration 1998, and Karamu, Vol. XVIII, No. 1. Jeremy has lived in Idaho, Palm Springs, San Diego, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco-at times living on the street. He is an activist with the peace and justice movement.