I drive a car

of irreplaceable parts

going south.

I crawl out of town at night,

a girl with a limp on my arm,

not knowing which belt

or hose is cracked,

leaking like a fistful

of fluids.

 

The headlights reach down

where the pavement

is supposed to be.

I have a feel for the tires

as they pitch

into the shoulder.

Then slowly guide them out and away

from the deeper ditch below,

hot with toxic runoff.

 

If a computer can get a virus,

then my car has asthma.

It gets winded at stoplights

like a chain smoker

who just finished sprinting uphill

to the hospital.

 

There is nothing my car needs

that isn’t lying

out somewhere on the dark road ahead,

at a gas station or rest stop

filled up with strangers like us.

We live one mile at a time

on boiled coffee and canned meat,

nursing overheated engine blocks

to speed our planned obsolescence.

 

by Greg Jensen 

 

 

Greg Jensen has worked with homeless adults living with mental illness and addiction problems for the past seventeen years. In addition to being a poet, he is a dad, husband, and avid bicyclist who works on the Seattle’s original Skid Road.

 

Listed at Duotrope
Listed with Poets & Writers
CLMP Member
List with Art Deadline
Follow us on MagCloud