Night Watch
Kevin Prufer
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A man was driving past the hospital with his son
when he felt a fluttering in his chest
which at first he took for nerves, because it was snowing
very hard and his young son was cranky
and squirming and how could he possibly see the road
with all this weather?
Then his hand began
to hurt, and then his wrist and arm,
so he pulled to the side of the road,
where, moments later, he died.
*
And the snow fell like angels,
and the boy watched
them cover the windows. Such snow
he had never seen, his father
asleep beside him, snow sifting
over the hush of the city and the car,
which grew darker,
dark as his room at night
and quiet, buried in snow.
And soon, he, too,
was asleep. And soon, the engine died.
