Jim Christy & a 1939 Plymouth

                                                           1939 Plymouth Road King, uncomposted.

AUTO-BIOGRAPHY

I wanted to see old broke cars.

Especially round ones like Edwardian 

Sofas, with side-view mirrors

Dangling like arthritic hands.

There I am at four,

Excited in the back seat. Parents

In front, pleased their kid

Needs no amusement parks, 

Ice cream cones. The 1939

Plymouth long landfill under Philadelphia

Airport runway. Parents long ashes, both.

Me, awed, laughing, pointing

At comic Studebakers like camels

Resting on their axles, rusted, broken-

Tooth grilles grinning back.

A Kaiser-Fraser with one sun visor

Turned down like a man who'd 

Shaved off an eyebrow.

Old broke cars with running boards

For the little tramp to jump upon

And steal a ride, and him and it

To ass-and-tea kettle clatter

Down the long road

From there

To here.

                               ---Jim Christy, 

                                   from his collection Marimba Forever, published by Guernica Editions, 2010.