Get Your Premium Membership

Peter Periwinkle

Poet's Notes
(Show)

Become a Premium Member and post notes and photos about your poem like Roxanne Andorfer.


This a true story. My dad was in a near-fatal head-on collision when he was on a bender.

“Peter Periwinkle had a car accident,” my brother said, as if reading it aloud from the back of a cereal box. It took me three full seconds to realize he meant our father. We were on my grandma’s farm where she had recently died, leaving chickens scratching unknowingly in the dust. Our father was elsewhere— broken, back bent like a paperclip, drunk at the wheel when the other car found him. “Peter Periwinkle had a car accident.” He'd meant it to be snide. A small, spiny cartoon creature— ridiculous, expendable— the punchline in a story where no one comes to help. I didn’t laugh. I just pictured a blue hedgehog lying still at the edge of some forgotten road. I hear it now in a different voice— quieter, without the sneer. Peter Periwinkle, still small and lost, still limping along the shoulder of some long-forgotten highway. I don’t excuse my brother for laughing when he said it, but he may have seen something I was too young to name.

Copyright © | Year Posted 2025




Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment

Date: 6/25/2025 5:09:00 AM
Interesting how different people cope with tragedy. Imaginative poem Roxanne
Login to Reply

Book: Reflection on the Important Things