New Poetry by Rebecca Dempsey

Survive by design

Windows shatter upon impact. When

diving across, and out the passenger side door,

heart in my throat, chips bite into the heels

of my palms like gravel. I pick shards

out of the divots in my hands by the

freeway. In the pulse of emergency lights,

star glass glitters on car seats, clothing, my hair.

There’s a graze along my neck

where the seatbelt rode too high.

An obvious injury, my doctor instead

checked where seatbelts are intended to cross.

I’m deemed safe by insurer assumptions

yet I’m not adjusted for. Female

crash test dummies were made

mandatory in 2011 but I’ll never fit design

percentiles. But we can’t all fit, can we?

Life’s not customisable. And anyway,

the 2011 change didn’t apply

to my old hatchback, as it expired

before dawn. My replacement car’s

seatbelts adjust, but again,

don’t sit right, because they’re

not made for me. Like the world:

steps I stumble over, tread too broad,

jar lids like phones, too wide for

glass scarred palms, benches I climb

to reach the plug, shelves beyond reach.

Too much to remake for my comfort,

in this man-made world. But I drive,

and while women are less likely to, 

and men are involved in more accidents,

women like me and many not,

remain 47 per cent more likely to die.

- © Rebecca Dempsey 2023

Rebecca Dempsey lives in Melbourne / Naarm. Her recent works appear in The Ekphrastic Review, The Primer, and Triggerfish Critical Review. She can be found at WritingBec.com.