Bliss
Rent from DeepDyve- Bliss
A motor vehicle carries us to our graves.clay mcshane, The Automobile: A Chronology ofIts Antecedents, Development, and Impact
You know, they had trafficin ancient Rome and in 1769,Nicolas Cugnot built a steam-powered
gun carriage. He ran it into a wall.In 1899, in New York City, Arthur Smithhit H. H. Bliss, the first American pedestrian
killed by car. I don’t like to pilot,steer. And I don’t want to driveyou home. Did you know
the word cab comes fromcabriolet? My grandmothermade me sit in the backseat.
Precious cargo, she called me,rolling slowly over dirt roads.Each pothole borne in my bones.
I won’t accept our vehicularworld. In 1817, streets were stillmeeting places. I want to remember [End Page 133]
the first streetlights, the ideas for greenand red borrowed from passing ships.I see us entering the earliest crosswalk,
the semaphore arm raised. And later—illuminated at night—those fog-edgedboxes glowing instruction. We can’t eventrust ourselves to scan both ways. [End Page 134]
Lindsay Tigue writes poetry and fiction and has work published or forthcoming in CutBank, Passages North, Indiana Review, and Moon City Review. She won the 2012 Indiana Review 1/2K Prize and attends the mfa program at Iowa State University.
