car poem

By tnasis

i think we find ourselves in our cars
i think we find owe are exactly the same
i have seen cars which groan and shout
out and demand the road's attention cars
that hug the asphalt beneath them cars
that dart between other cars cars that
hit themselves and cry my car has been
every one of these.

it is human nature to want to feel
contained our bodies hold us together
our clothes are the same the car we drive
is one more shell what if we all let go
let free if we all really knew what
everything was about what if we never
found our way back in what if we could fly?

once when i was very small too small
to drive i crept into my mother's car
and turned the key i sat alive to the
hum and knew instinctively that this
was all i really wanted to do i can
sit car in limbo i can sit very still
and continue to respect myself i do not
have to be anywhere anything soon this
place is only a waiting room this place
does not count against you.

imagine this: the car beside yours sits
like a knife on the road the one beside
it is exactly the same you know your own
car and the others around it sit in exactly
this way they are silver and exact and
they are all cutting machines doesn't
anyone know how scary this
sounds doesn't anyone know how scare this sounds?

i drive in radical spurts of stop and
go i learned the acceleration is on the
right the brake is on the left you
drive on the right side of the road
you can make a right turn on red and some
left turns are protected it is a metaphysical
belief that the right side of
a body releases energy and the left
side draws it all in       this makes sense.

there are the roads which curve into
other roads and there are the ones
that stretch so flat out and reach
without one glance back these are the
roads i like to drive i want to drive
foot on the gas drive with me right
foot on the right pedal drive until
i break through the gentle green skin
of the earth because they i will be flying.


Previous published in Bullseye, literary magazine of Douglas MacArthur High School, 1993