Intimacy Ambush

Immediately after the accident
the woman in the car behind me
came up to my driver’s door
and asked if I was alright
I wound down the window
answered that I was
and so it seemed to me…
I couldn’t move my right leg
and I couldn’t see why not
but I was still sitting upright
in my seat belt
there was no blood
but this woman knew differently
she saw I was in shock and
before I had even properly registered her face
she opened the van door behind me
climbed in, and kneeling
reached her arm around my headrest
to cradle my head with her arm
holding it upright.

The farmer had backed off his tractor
stood a little way away
phoning the emergency services.

It seemed the most natural thing
in the world to feel the soft bare arm
of this woman, now invisible to me
her disembodied voice near to my ear
reassuring me that it would be alright
and I should relax, keep still
– she was a nurse she said.
Could there have been a
more fortuitous person to
be following me, I thought
as I gave myself up to
her gentle, minimal ministration
of simply holding me
– talking to me
showing me how to put myself
in others’ hands, as I was now to do
for the next few months
then fire brigade and ambulance
arrived and she slipped away
passing me on as it were
and I think of her kindness
which though professionally practised
ambushed us both on a remote road
outside of work, and created
a moment of intimacy
that took away the trauma…

© Andrew Wilson, 2026

Over at dVerse Poets Pub,  sanaarizvi in OpenLinkNight, invites us to the live meeting on Saturday and to post a poem to read (if we successfully navigate the temporarily out-of-sync time zones – we Brits don’t put the clocks forward till 29th March!). This is a recent poem from my writers group and was written ITSO The Kindness by Jan Beatty