HWY B

She landed with a crunch eating pavement.
We ran towards her.
She, confused, disoriented
reeking of alcohol.
The driver laid the pedal down,
never looking back, a blur of blue and red
lurching forward at fifty-five miles per hour.

She cried for help, but wanted
to be left alone, disappearing
into a mass of river cane. Intoxicated pleas
pierced my heightened senses,
but we weren't about to leave.

She huddled at the base of the cane,
unaware of her busted knee, or the blood
flowing from its grated wound.
She could barely see out of her left eye;
swollen, puffy,
washed with black mascara.

"He's going to kill me; he's going to kill me." Her
panicked cries turned my stomach,
so I swallowed hard
trying to keep its contents in place.

"Leave, please leave, if he sees me,
he'll kill me."
Her powder blue eyes wildly searched my
own dark blue ones;
she could see my resolve.

I crouched beside her,
shielding her exposed
position from the highway. For once,
thanking God that
I wasn't a tiny woman.
My husband stood flanked on her left,
stationary like a massive keep,
protecting her, from what, we didn't know.

Her cries heightened as
she heard a familiar sound.
An engine knocked, and rattled
speeding back towards our position.

"That's him she cried, my dad...
is going to kill me."
"No, he won't," I tried to soothe her fears,
"The police are on their way.
We will keep you hidden; safe."

Panicking, she began to confess;
drug deals, collecting money from users,
fighting with her ex-husband,
losing her children.

She was completely feral.

Her class of 2000 ring caught my eye,
and I choked back tears. She was young,
too young to be in this moment.

Siren song cracked the air like a whip, and
my own fear turned to relief,
loosening my tensed shoulders as
the officer approached.
The woman, battered , bruised, afraid
looked at the policeman
and lied.

"I fell down when I was walking."

It pained me to hear the rattling truck pull up,
to hear her lies, to see the man
she'd escaped walking towards her.

After questions, statements, and no charges
she tried to stand,
falling backwards, her knee
unable to support her weight.

Finding some inner strength,
she slowly hobbled towards the red
and blue pickup truck
from which she had been flung. She left,
leaving us helpless to help.

Read more poetry at Susan's Poetic Blogosphere.