Gasoline

The smell of garage gasoline and
aromatics, of wood chips
and old, cold concrete with
cracks in it and dead crickets
in the corners

Now we have the engine,
the roaring, firing smoke and
noise, the smell.

It took you somewhere.

If you played your cards right,
you could trust it.
And you could
shout over the wind and
escape the long heats of summer
afternoons.

Rubber and grinding metal
and singed leg hair, a junebug on
your neck.

A drop of sweat sizzles on
a hot piece of metal.

The Flood

I had a room there all to myself.

A long black tar-topped

parking lot hugging the motel

in steaming, Summer

arms.

I watched them pull away in

the thundering, sweeping rain.

The woman and the

little girl, they held a half of

a newspaper each

over their heads.

It was a nice car, one of these

crossover/station wagons on

steroids. The wind blew the rain

sideways, ditches were overflowing.

The dad was holding

a danish, from the

continental breakfast,

when he jumped into the driver's seat.

When they pulled

The car out of the swamp

People could see their bleach white bones

falling from the broken windows.

Now none of the money

they made, none of those

great houses of love and

pain, could keep

the warm river water from 

wrapping them

in a deadly embrace.

In the dark currents at the bottom

all things are cold, the catfish's whiskers

and a hand, or a finger, or

an American-made engine.