Red light

The eyes of a dead girl looked the same in
a photo as it does on TV shows. Her hair was
brassy blond, maybe sassy as its owner. A way
of telling the world she didn't care what
anyone thought of her being seventeen with a
baby on the way and a toddler waiting at home.
The girl who lived was further along and
not far gone and not sure who to blame. The car
that hit them didn't see the point of stopping for a
red light at four in the morning. She wondered
about her own unborn, about why a faceless driver
was willing to leave them lying there on the road.
Friends arrived to hold her hand, to close
unseeing eyes, to hold a body that would not
hold anyone in return again. Red light, blue light.
The girl who lived got the neck brace that
her friend didn't need, a trophy for surviving,
a green light to keep traveling past 'GO'.

(Originally self-published in poetry chapbook "Abnormalities and Other Poems" in July 2016.)