Riding on fumes
Ignoring the voice inside my head
Disregarding the rattle and shake and warning lights
Ignoring Dad’s voice from beyond the grave
The world beyond the auto graveyard
The distant voice so frustrated with the whims
And carefree ideals of a young girl
Rattling and shaking
And the car rattles and I get all rattled up
Shaking in my little red boots
Shaking to the tunes
Blasting away the voice
That shines and laughs in time to the tune
Tuning up, tuning out
“What’s wrong with this one? She’s not like the others…”
Shaking and rattling and riding on the fumes
Sliding into the home base,
Coasting into the hometown station
Stationary in the place where I grew up
The voice still calling to put gas in that car
And to check the oil and the fluid levels and the tires
And to eat some ham because all Polish people eat ham
“Why don’t you eat ham?”
“What’s wrong with her?”
Filling my tank and checking my oil, I finally feel like an adult
As the muffled voice on the loudspeaker shouts
“Don’t forget to buy your ham sandwich!”
No comments:
Post a Comment