Working, always working, even on the weekend. Spreadsheets are impatient
And insensitive to our whims. A+B= C regardless of the outcome you desire.
So check the formula, get it right. Make the numbers tell the story.
But the sun is warm on my shoulders and I am too tired to analyze
numbers, too distracted to wrestle with logic. Home beckons, not my home
but my home, where walls, scents, and arms hug me, where coffee waits,
where candles burn, where photographs breathe.
So I will drive 40 miles today, park my car where my copper
Dodge once sat, covered in tree sap, faded ugly paint that would never shine
no matter how hard I tried to polish out the white haze ghosting
its hood. Still, it was mine, and I was proud to have it until I traded it to
my brother for his little red hatchback. I remember blushing
when I cleaned it up and saw blond hair all over the backseat.
And I remember wanting my car back. He ran it into the ground his ex-girlfriend told me.
Into the ground. What does that mean ? Did it burst into flames, did it fall apart
piece by piece , or is it still parked in a driveway, broken beyond repair
but bringing comfort to an owner who at least still has it? It was a classic, after all.
Check the date. I should have held on to it, I regret letting it go
for a shinier, newer car that I eventually grew tired of and sold
for next to nothing. But what does a child know about these things?
Into the ground. What does that mean? It sounds so final, demands an explanation.
And where is the blue Maverick? I loved that night we drove around town,
all of us together, and they played guitar and sang Dust in the Wind
on the steps of the high school, an impromptu concert given by a choir of fools
Suddenly there were old people peeking through curtains,
phone in hand ready to call the police, like we were some demons released
into their buttoned-up neighborhood upon the witching hour.
Between gasps of laughter I said check the time
and we all laughed until we cried when we realized it was 2AM. And so we left—
knowing, of course we would come back another day. We never did.
He parked his blue Maverick next to the bridal veil bush, behind the copper car
which sparkled now–thanks to the gentle, but insistent glow
of the streetlight and he asked will you and I said yes and he kissed me
and my heart skipped a beat, and Dust in the Wind
became my favorite song, and October 9th my favorite day, and that night
I dreamt acoustic.
How the heart tries to get its way. Rudely dismisses logic, befriends regret.
Stay home, stay close. Be safe. It is the season of haunting,
of wailing, of gnashing of teeth and dressed up corpses mimicking life;
of pennies dropped from prostrate pockets, of apologies
littering gravestones like November leaves—brittle, dead,
useless. Strike a match. Watch them burn. This is the season
of dust in the wind, and ghosts in bushes peering through bridal veil,
blooms long since cut and discarded or fallen away,
driven into the ground by life that has passed them by.
)