$25 Statutory Witness Fee
I hear the lawyer
use the term spiderwebbing
to describe her head
hitting the windshield
shattering her head the glass
is all I see
pawn pieces while I am on
break during this deposition
at the height of the city line
imagine
being held in place by gravity
I was acting
as pedestrian I say
on the record
imagine being held in place by only gravity
now, seated—small at a table
on a high floor
I see
her head hit the windshield and it spiderwebbed.
the windshield.
no.
her head. the inside. the blood brain.
on the street I could only remember the color blue
and be grateful for it as a word
how it looks against red rubs against black
her head. the windshield. “spiderwebbed.”
all caught up in glass and red and blue
in typical circumstances make purple
wet brain wet windshield wet girl
she was bleeding a blue dress
wearing it all
Sarah Hulyk Maxwell
Sarah Hulyk Maxwell lives in Pittsburgh with her two cats and husband. She works at a law firm where her MFA from Louisiana State University is practically worthless, but she’s pretty good-natured about it. Her most recent work can be found in Salamander and Up the Staircase Quarterly and is forthcoming in NANO Fiction and Red Paint Hill.