Ford

The only thing I could think about for the past 2 hours was how
That veggie sandwich belonged in my mouth
The longing of a lost lover consumed me as I turned the key in the ignition.
My whistle and my Pura Vida key chain bumped into one another
With the hollow clank of cheap plastic accented my rolling gastric juices.                                      (5)
As I signalled out of the school parking lot.
I listened to the hum of my tires on wet pavement
And my passengers relaxed breath.
I made the wrong turn--Right.
And there he sat at the next stop sign.                                                                                        (10)
We had time to talk about it--What?
He nonchalantly rolled forward--Where?
He saw me--had to. Bright white, fresh washed like Corel ware,
A little rusty, but roughly the size of any respectable iceberg.
Nothing blocking his radical view- he wouldn’t hit us.                                                                    (15)

Fuck--A moment of pause where the air grew thick and my grip tightened on the worn wheel
Four thousand, five hundred pounds spinning my three thousand eight hundred
Counter clockwise through the center of a
Lunch-rush intersection like a child’s toy top.
The engine stalled facing the way we had come--one hundred eighty degrees.                          (20)
We reached a halt when the tires stopped shrieking Bloody Mary,
Long after the tin foil crunch of my driver’s side door
Condensing two feet--a pre- recycled beer can--an inch behind my left ear.
I shook off and on like a housewives vibrator on low battery,
And whimpered like a broken toddler,                                                                                          (25)
The whole drive to the collision center--flinching at every stop sign--a crushed puppy.
I stepped out to my parents scolding the big boy in the truck,
(Told them to cut it out-- he was a good person)
But I couldn’t step back in.
Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t turn my neck, couldn’t feel, couldn’t answer- re-join.                                (30)
It was condemned. Something about both axels bending like lady licorice around
Muses rigid hips.
But that’s okay, the insurance covered it and besides my old whistle burnt like battery acid in my naked palm.
Today I had an errand to run, and spent twenty minutes in the drive way racing the engine in my mind.
I waited until the slowest hour of the day to ease out onto the highway in my mother’s van.              (35)
All windows down in the dead of winter with the radio on too loud- couldn’t hear the tires hum along.
Settled between the arm rest and the air bag, nestled into the gas pedal, brake at the ready,
I realized in that comfort, I needed to run.