MGB
Mine was red of a kind
burnt
orange by the sun,
each day paler
than
the day before.
No
one’s turned over
on demand.
There was no reason,
no predicting. May afternoons,
left at the Wash N’ Fold,
past Cow Shit Corner,
where the manure was warmed,
mixed by late-morning,
with the ocean air. Or right,
down Maine Street,
past the fishermen who were drunk
by noon, refusing
to shift from second to third
for fear of losing the familiar
hold-back rumble between
acceleration and exhale,
past the girls at Frosty’s,
across the bridge by the mill,
not yet 4, the time when the factories let out,
when the weekend began
in earnest, and everything
worth waiting for was just ahead,
around the bend,
within cruising range,
the alluring paleness
of the sky so white
you could almost feel
the night, moonrise
over the growing fields
and farms with their junk
yards of discarded dream
vehicles in barns and culverts,
behind the house graduate
shadows removing color
from the impossible finish.
--Bruce Willard
