The Plymouth Valiant
Rain
made the windshield wipers work hard
to
keep up as someone shouted, or cried.
All
fights happened in the car. In those days
when
the front seat was one long bench
one
of us girls would climb over, wiggle into
the
middle, and watch the wet dark hit the windshield.
Those
days are vanishing, rearview mirror, rain
on
the road, water in the wheel wells.
We
will never be, again, the family in the car.
It
is already gone, my mother passing, a door,
even
our memories of it vanish. We sang
Swingin’ Along the Open Road and
Dona Nobis Pacem, in a round. One car,
a
Plymouth Valiant, beyond rust now,
in
a junkyard, the seats long gone,
rain-soaked sponge
and torn vinyl. 
That poem hits home Jane.
ReplyDeleteOur 1965 Plymouth Valiant - four door sedan - was that last family car before my older brother left for university.
Being Air Force brats the car was the only thing that our family owned, in that our houses were all rentals.
1965: That car had seat belts! We had never seen those before. We even used them from time to time.
- Reg