by Sara Shea

On I-26, heading into Asheville,
a flatbed rolls beside me,
stacked with husks of cars—
mud-caked, mangled, dripping.
One might’ve been a van, once,
Hard to tell.
Metal curled back on itself.
Windshields blown in
like lungs collapsed.

Seven months now since Helene.

That blaze of neon orange—
search and rescue spray-paint
tells the story, marking days
when the water rose.

This load’s likely bound
for the scrap yard
past the stump dump,
where mounds of ruin rise
like new mountain chains
of debris above the French Broad
and River Arts District.

These cars have been sunk
half a year in silt and shadow,
rivers swallowing them whole.
Recovery crawls.
Federal aid dries up.
Volunteers come with chains,
backhoes grunt through sludge.

Now, as we travel side by side,
clods of riverbed still drop
from the bellies of these frames.
Long threads of kudzu trail behind—
green pennants flapping
not quite surrender,
not quite hope.

And there, on the flatbed
snagged in a crimp
of crushed steel,
a snarl of multiflora rose—
white petals open,
trembling in the wind.

Sara Shea received her BA from Kenyon College, where she served as Student Associate Editor for The Kenyon Review. She’s pursued graduate studies through the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC Asheville and at Western Carolina University, where she studied with Ron Rash. Her work has appeared in The Connecticut River Review, Quarterly West, The Static in Our Stars Anthology, Key West Love Poetry Anthology, Amsterdam Quarterly, Gaslamp Pulp, Petigru Review, New Plains Review, The Awakenings Review and Atlanta Review. Shea is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the New Millennium Poetry Prize judged by UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.  Shea writes professionally, producing marketing materials for a fine arts gallery in Asheville, NC.