She did what we have all threatened to—I’ll beat
my head against this windshield, just
watch me! I spotted the woman, parallel parking
with gas-guzzlers honking, shrilling shut
up! shut up! I can’t fit! just before her forehead burst
open. The smear on the windshield—
a Viking might have named it rage-blossom. And who
hasn’t picked this blossom to pieces? Petal
after petal, the world loves me, the world loves me
not. We all gaped at the bloody glass, in
thrall to her rage, in thrall to the Vikings who
buried their dead under the weight of
mouth-snakes, within the language of the still-
living. Our anger was their word for
grief and here’s where grief will get you: when
the Viking queen’s lover died, she killed
herself as well as two hawks, five slaves, eight
maids, four men, and her three-
year-old son. One serf, offered a spot on
the pyre, said, let the hall-servants achieve
such honor, honor, of course, meaning just
a good name. There’s a good name for
everything: this sky-candle setting, these fender-
benders proliferating, even my own road-
rage. I’ll slash the neighbors, stick it to that brown-
noser, sack the supply closet, burn that
paper-pusher alive. Some afternoons on the auto-
sea, I plunder kennings and some afternoons
I am keening heart-sore too: I don’t fit. Some
afternoons I speak Viking. I pick
a blossom to pieces.