Notes About The Poem
[1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS Hardtop Coupe Gulfport, MS - October 04, 2023: Wide angle front corner view of a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS Hardtop Coupe at a local car show. 1970 chevy stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images] 
Breathless
Breathless
As the years mount and the climb takes your breath away, both by the ambience, life, and old age, I look back at that day fifty-some years ago.
A family of nine squeezes into my grandfather's 1970 2-door Chevy.
From Hamilton, Ontario, we drive the anomaly to the Niagara Falls and a pinch into New York.
Grandpa drove fast.
Perhaps to escape the curious onlookers, squeezing their noses at the mixed-race family riding inside his car. You see, grandpa was like Archie Bunker, similarly in appearance and ethnicity--working class, blue collar, worked in a steel factory, and owned a row house with an attic, a 2nd floor of three rooms, a basement, a porch in front, and a veranda in back, and a garden of fruit trees and vegetables. He raised one daughter (my mother). And he was racist.
He certainly didn't like my father, who was Japanese.
And he certainly didn't like his five grandchildren, a hodgepodge of stew that his eyes and lips would look down upon and convey without any pretense.
Grandma and my mother sat in the front seats.
And from the front, I could feel the steel in my Grandfather's eyes as he looked at my father and his five children (with me being the oldest) sitting in the back seat.
He never smiled. He never talked. He said curse words under his breath, bemoaning his fate.
The radio was off, but you could sense that sad music was playing.
When we reached Niagara Falls, which is around 45 miles away, I could sense that Grandpa was counting the days until his daughter and her family would return to their home in Hawaii.
He remained in the car. Unmoving, unattached, and unloved.
It was a beautiful day out. Tourists marveled at the waterfalls and their roar. Little kids like us looked happier.
There's a mist of spray in the air, and the only mist I can see is the one in my mother's eyes.
connie pachecho
6/9/26
Notes-
The metaphor-cramped way of life that I grew up with, the car holding nine people;
contrast-grandpa's bitterness, the vibrancy of life and Niagara Falls; the breathlessness of age and memory; heartbreaking seeing the mist in my mother's eyes.
Notes-
Had all intentions of entering Constance's contest. But I was late again. I guess there will be a table for one.
Notes-I read Nette's current contest and would love to jump into the current. This poem, I feel, would fit perfectly under the contest prompt-"Stained Window," but then again, I'm afraid of drowning. Table for one, please.
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