"The Red Car"
Shannon Anderson
The Red Car
On the splendid interstate, your mind,
with a clarity verging on greed,
was on your car
on inconceivable speeds and suspensions systems like placentas
Beverly Hills mansions were nothing in comparison
to the silk wheels and the engine moaning like a naked woman,
Godiva, in her ceaseless moonlight ride.
Nothing could beat the pleasure of coming
to a stop, switching off, speck by spot, the purring of the beast.
your eyes on mine, as discerning and remarkable
as one hundred miles per hour.
They could include me in their drifting, and here I am
living in spite of the ancientness my bones feel;
my head lowered, I watched your ageless outline,
your features engaging and lost
That day we decided to ‘be together’
and you made me spill my wild small talk
about the kinds of monsters I had met.
And the places my feet had drifted,
roving over filthy places
around tens of thousands of tiny corners.
Then, just by thinking about it
you radiated an aerodynamic coldness as we rushed to the climax,
leaning towards sadomasochism
and moving to step on the gas
to approach the most dangerous curves
your heart would ever know
I did not know that those days were the days of my decline
And that I really was already an old woman on a ruinous summer
And I didn’t know that instead of changing the world and making you happy
Everything I was doing just made for good stories.
|
