The Mechanics of Inspiration
by Kate Wright
For Shane Edward Horner 1991-2009
The coroner said that you travelled northbound at approximately ten miles an hour
too fast, veered three feet too far to the right,
and corrected the wheel fifteen degrees
too far to the left, far too fast to ever stop
before the head-on impact. He said your inspiration
ended with the last breath pushed out
by the air bag. But what he said meant little
to me who found inspiration everywhere:
in the yellow snake of school busses that travelled
from twenty miles around, stretching
two miles of Main Street in our blinkand-you’ll-miss-it-town, in the sea
of eight hundred and forty-three children
and adults, faces red, wet, and swollen, clutching
the stranger next to them, singing off-key hymns.
One thousand and thirty-nine signatures
covered the swing that someone started
signing and soon became illegible
with trembling hands. For years to come
two kids will go to school on a scholarship
your folks make in your name. When you reached
the limit of your inspirations,
your inspiration had just begun.
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