Auto Wreck
Karl Shapiro
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Its quick soft silver bell beating, beating, And down the dark one ruby flare Pulsing out red light like an artery, The ambulance at top speed floating down Past beacons and illuminated clocks Wings in a heavy curve, dips down, And brakes speed, entering the crowd. The doors leap open, emptying light; Stretchers are laid out, the mangled lifted And stowed into the little hospital. Then the bell, breaking the hush, tolls once, And the ambulance with its terrible cargo Rocking, slightly rocking, moves away, As the doors, an afterthought, are closed. We are deranged, walking among the cops Who sweep glass and are large and composed. One is still making notes under the light. One with a bucket douches° ponds of blood Into the street and gutter. One hangs lanterns on the wrecks that cling, Empty husks of locusts, to iron poles. Our throats were tight as tourniquets, Our feet were bound with splints, but now, Like convalescents intimate and gauche,° We speak through sickly smiles and warn With the stubborn saw of common sense, The grim joke and the banal resolution. The traffic moves around with care, But we remain, touching a wound That opens to our richest horror. Already old, the question Who shall die? Becomes unspoken Who is innocent? For death in war is done by hands; Suicide has cause and stillbirth, logic; And cancer, simple as a flower, blooms. But this invites the occult mind, Cancels our physics with a sneer, And spatters all we knew of denouement° Across the expedient and wicked stones. |
Making Meanings
Auto Wreck
1. How do you think the speaker in “Auto Wreck” is changed by this experience of human tragedy?
2. In your own words, summarize very briefly what happens in each stanza.
3. Describe what you see and hear in the first two stanzas. Which details in the poem evoke those sensations?
4. What details in lines 22–27 tell you how the spectators are feeling and what they are saying to one another?
5. Which images in the poem are based on medical terminology? Why do you think the poet decided to choose these images?
6. According to the speaker, how are deaths by war, suicide, and stillbirth different from the kind of accidental death described in the poem? What do you think the speaker is really so disturbed about in the last lines?
7. What might the speaker mean by saying that his questions can be answered only by an “occult” mind? What verb in line 38 reminds you again of the auto wreck?
8. Do you think someone the speaker knew was in the auto wreck, or is he just a bystander? Do you think it is important to know the answer to this question? Explain your response.