The Best Thing About Your Car

Getting your car fixed is best
when it's paid for
and you've gotten a new muffler
and the oil's changed
and the fluids checked
and the spare's patched
and rotated are the tires.

It's a fine time to be alive.
Your dad's probably proud of this.
You feel organized and prepared.
You are alive as you can be. But

sooner or later it stalls on
the highway. Eventually,
there is a noise you hear.
A battery dies. A telephone call
from a restaurant lobby
to a taxi or tow is dialed with fingers
thick with desperation--a blood
pressure of thick.

The car in the lot sits
unapologetic; when you
sit in a car you're a car part.

copyright 2002 Peter Davis
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