Super-sized Series

 Hot Wheels Or Not


 

ELEGY FOR MY 1968 VW BEETLE by Barbara Crooker
    
It was red as a ladybird,
and I had to learn to drive
stick to make it go.  The opposite
of streamlined: curvy as a beachball.
As I was, newly pregnant, The Summer
of Love, when we set off to the music
of Simon & Garfunkel, searching
for America.  Did we find it in
Haight-Ashbury where we stayed
with friends from college, breaking 
into another friend’s apartment to watch
the moon landing? San Francisco, where
someone broke into our bug, rifled through
our stuff, found nothing worth stealing—
Thankfully, I didn’t drop acid—later, the baby
died, and that guilt would have haunted me
forever.  My bell bottoms grew tight 
around the belly; I had to leave them unzipped,
covered over with a gauzy top.  I began 
to resemble the hood of the car, a pregnant
roller skate.  It took us across Death Valley,
no air-conditioning, and we didn’t think
to bring water.  How young we truly were.
After our marriage finally unraveled, we shared
custody of both the car and our second daughter,
but somehow it was never available when my classes
met, so I had to hitchhike with a briefcase and a toddler
who happily colored in blue books while my students
wrote their essays.  In its last year, I had to park
facing downhill so I could pop the clutch
to get it started.  That marriage was broken 
beyond repair, but you, faithful friend, kept on
chugging on your four little cylinders, even
on rutted roads, even on snow-packed hills. . . .

from Salt

 

The Lemon by Elaine Sorrentino
 
Before
            you rolled
                        into my life
 
I dreamed
            of racing you
                        around the block
 
feeling
               your ergonomic
                              support on my back
allowing
               you to steer
                              our relationship
 
as we grooved
               to Maroon Five
                              on your Bose speakers.
This economy girl
            longed for her taste
                        of luxury and performance
 
fancying herself
            perched proudly
                        on your armrest.
 
When dream
               became reality,
                              you clocked

more hours
               with the mechanics
                              at the dealership

than with me.

first published by Etched Onyx Magazine


and this haiku for the same vehicle:


gray Camry for sale
huge HIT ME sign on the back
otherwise perfect



  

The Copper Colored 1977 Lincoln by Sharon Waller Knutson

sits on the street
shiny as a kettle,
a For Sale sign
in the window.

I call the number
and tell the owner
I want to buy the car
for my mother,

an eighty-year-old
widow, so I can drive 
her to the oncologist
since the Buick burst

into flames in the Post Office
parking lot last week.
I saw it on the news, he says.

He agrees to drive the Lincoln
across town and parks
in front of the bookstore
so mama can see it. 

He sees the stooped woman
in a beehive and makeup
in the second floor window
smiling and waving.

And I run down the stairs
to tell him she wants it.
He shakes my hand
and says, It’s a deal.

But when I show up
to pay and pick up 
the Lincoln, a couple
is caressing the chrome.

We’ll double the price,
the blonde woman says.
The old man hesitates.
I hold my breath.

Sorry it’s sold to this lady
and her mother, he says 
as he hands me the keys
and takes the check.




 
Joe Cottonwood’s daughter ready to drive to a formal dance at her high school (with white gloves!), about to enter the dirty old diesel car


Best junker I ever bought, by Joe Cottonwood

a diesel Rabbit that spouted
smoky blue clouds
which was legal, mind you, 
diesel fumes not a ticket offense
(thank you, trucking lobby) 
but obnoxious to the world
so cops would tail me, 
cite me for driving 26 in a 25 zone, 
cite me for failure to signal a right turn, 
stop me for long hair and an 
FU REAGAN bumper sticker.

Somehow I bypassed most of the Eighties,
the greed decade, 
Kissinger killing peasants
by proxy in Nicaragua, 
the whole ugly passage of glam-rock 
while I was raising babies
among bluegrass banjos 
in sensuous poverty with a car 
that taught three children to drive, 
went zero to 60 only downhill,
spewed oil everywhere, stopped shifting,
dropped a muffler, lost brakes,
built character, carried strong kids, 
happy kids, smart kids who say
“Breaking down is part of the adventure,”
who will always remember the grit,
the scent of blue smoke
on a cold morning.

 


Beetle by Lynn White

They had a reputation for reliability
but there’s always an exception to the rule.
Mine was the exception
with an inclination 
to come to a halt
for no reason,
just a whim.
It was worse after it was fixed,
it’s tappets adjusted
or perhaps renewed.
It became so afraid of stalling 
that it was reluctant even to start.
One part of the car park was on a slight slope.
I got to work early to make sure of my place.
I switched on the engine,
gave it a push,
leapt inside
and put it into gear.
Usually that did the trick
and the engine spluttered into life.
No way will I let anyone fix tappets
on my car again.

First published in Pilcrow and Dagger, November 2018

 

Blue Tracker, White Magic by Rachael Ikins

The car sits in the driveway as deflated as Cinderella’s pumpkin. A chariot, a dragon ensorcelled, a pulchritudinous stallion, blue hued and white, blackened with age.

Mid-April temps not risen enough, sun journeys toward equinox and solstice and all the juice within. We wash automobiles in front of our house, too cold outside for much else.

Car drove into my life 8/03. Canvas topped Geo tracker.4 on the floor. 80,000 mi. Instruction manual, maintenance lettered with a careful hand.

Somebody once loved this truck.

Weather beaten barn protected fragile roof, from branches that flew to rip, Winter storms, Summer sun’s bleaching hand. Five years I drove up the steep drive a month of groceries
stacked in back. Crates of yowling cats behind my seat, or bounces of dogs, a Peke named Willie, a dachs who sleeps still at my feet, big-voiced Annie, deaf Bella, a chocolate lab, dogs who cared only that we ran as a pack.

280 lbs of bagged sand anchored this leaf- light car to earth on winter ice. A tabby barn cat used the rear seat as a couch at night. She slept.

Cracked front left bumper? Old man smacked a gas pump. Dismissed it. “Just a scratch” Headlight dangled from its socket like a blinded eye. Trekked high up salvage mountain, wandered among Tracker skeletons, I searched out a replacement lamp.

Old man forgot to pull the parking brake—Little Jeep filled with dogs, helpless roll down across the road. Fetched up in the generous sweep, an ancient apple tree’s arm at the lip of a depthless well.

I blasted from the barn one morning. Broke my side mirror out of its frame. Right’s marked, red paint, white. Barn door E’ville, Garage door, Menands. Year of the vegetable garden, rototiller ripped upholstery, plastic trim.

Heater’s drone, dashboard lights’ blink? Mice lived lavish inside fan belt and glove box, black foam still blows some cold days.

Faces to forget crammed behind me. Woman to remember, next to me, my Corona cap low, denim jacket or black leather wings with western fringe as I shift down.

When I was Cinderella I ran away from her. Her kisses woke me from dangerous slumber. When I was not Snow White, she cleaned poison from me anyway. Gentle fingers tipped with gold held my head.
All the while, rust clambered into cracks and crannies, faithful Tracker, blistered paint, orange-brown. Tires bow like the knees of an old horse. Softened flesh, dented pumpkin.

Like Dorothy I tracked through hell. Battered Birkenstocks, beat-up car, a possibility of poetry.
We rub unguents into the car's skin, soft even strokes this day. Leave its windows rolled down to dry. Then we go inside.

From Just Two Girls