Don McKay & the syrinx of speed

Ode to My Car

by Don McKay

 As if. As if it oiled your idle

notions, machined,

massaged them till there was no

clunk no hand me that spanner no

crank 'er over.

As if motor were simply the syrinx of speed as if

movie movie all you ever have to pay is your attention, focus

on the docudrama in the windshield, stay tuned

to the hummingbird who hums in the accelerator, in the cylinders

the six brave heart attacks are singing and the clutch

performs the sigh with which the lovers shift into

                                                                       more comfortable

positions:

                there.

Something has come from nothing, as if

a handful of its blackberries had been

gathered. Something in a tooth

deserves to speak in tongues. Something in a consonant

attends its vowels, as if

minuet. Synchromesh.

Momentum. Here lies the precise

mystery of transmission.

                                                             in Apparatus (McClelland & Stewart, 1997)