Support for WPR comes from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, with the Center Stage Series, presenting the St. Thomas Boys Choir of Leipzig, performing in concert Saturday, November 18th. Tickets.Luther.edu.

Hi, everyone. It's Anne here with another episode of The News from Poems, our partnership with Asphodel.Info.

This week, National Book Critics Circle Award winner Laura Kaziski joins us.

She's published nine books of poetry and nine novels, three of which have been made into films.

She's a literary celebrity in France, where her work is adored. And this week, Laura wrote a poem about something that just happened, or almost happened, in her own life.

WTF. I see her just in time, a young woman, a girl, frankly, with her earbuds in.

She's one of the many who hasn't bothered to look one way, let alone both ways, before stepping into the street today.

I see her just in time to stomp the brakes in order not to kill her.

She never knows what didn't hit her. She's wearing a t-shirt with

WTF on it. Of course, I know what this stands for. I've texted it to friends. I've said it outright

in public, have whispered it, have thought it, written it, been at the center of what it means

and what it is. But what I read instead,

seeing her T-shirts three letters through my windshield this afternoon is, what's to fear? Because

she hasn't bothered to fear today, it seems. Some other time I might have gotten angry, honked my horn,

unrolled my window, and shouted something out about

suicidal tendencies, childish stupidity. But today I say to her silently instead, may such times

continue to slam their brakes for you as you continue on your way. Or at least, may you look up just in time one day to say to yourself

something simple like, I've made a regrettable but rectifiable mistake. While the motorcades pass

through you without wounding you, the flashing sirens and lights, the patriotic parades,

the hirs flapping, their miniature flags, the whole

vehicular physics of everything, slipping through you, waving politely, as if nothing

might be the answer to the question you're not asking, what's to fear, as if this could save

...