In Memoriam

The hill by my house is steep and smooth
And sometimes when it's damp out
The tiny grooves on my tires fail
On my elderly car
And it stalls. I start it up again
Looking up at the street lights
Curved like ribs on a snake
As if the road were its spinal cord.
Each lane line is a vertebrae
And its head is where I'm going.
I like my description of my tires
Of the lay of the highway
Of the sad state of my car
With a rusted chassis
Brittle as silver leaf in a tapestry thread
And I wonder, "where have I been?"
What has taken me so long?

My car purrs as I let some tears out
And I stroke the dashboard, telling it
"This won't happen again."
On the radio I listen to a story of a boy
Who remembers the only time his mother held him
Because he only pretended to sleep.
I've never held my writing.
I've never held the weight of a rusty sedan.
I've never even held everything that I could say.
Something explodes in my brain, spontaneously
Like fuel in an engine,
And off I go.