Was it Kiki or Heinz with whom we hitched
that ride from Hamburg to Berlin
twenty years ago, the sun setting across
the barren expanse of the Prussian march
as the car (an out-of-service ambulance!)
pulled onto the transit highway from which
there was no getting off except to stop,

wait for the East German cops to show up
and question the driver and his (her?) passengers
as to why we'd missed our scheduled arrival
in Berlin, wind whipping off the fields
with a cold as numbing as the grey
eyes of that policeman asking why
we'd stopped the car, the answer being

we'd hit something in the dark which - bang! -
was there and gone, the driver turning
onto the gravel shoulder as we got out
to assess the damage done, the headlight
shattered and caved in, while at the edge,
caught in the twisted chrome and there
for the cop to inspect, the bristles of a boar

we'd hit which none of us could see
or saw as it crossed into our path
all those years ago, the highway bleak
and empty but for the whistling wind
wild as the thought of tomorrow among
the dark reaches where that boar still ran,
wounded and mortal - was it Gabi? was it Fritz?