How It Goes
A love of fast cars that he could not afford
led him to be a poor fourth place in his own race.
He once lived in an ancient Toyota van,
just for a week, but long enough to establish
that he was weak, and needed an older woman
to finance any future souped-up muscle car.
A woman with a sloppy caboose
mature enough to own a patch of land, adopted him
to tend a spread of dirt and raise chickens.
For a while he thrived in a mediocre way
until cock crows came between them.
He financed a much used Mercedes.
but the payments were too tight for his loose life style
so he buried it at night
in a mud pit at the side of I-75.
What he really wanted
was a girl dumb enough to love him prematurely
as if he were a thing to be worked upon,
but then grey hairs in an otherwise flaxen field
foretold the end of those country songs.
In a grungy bar of lost hopes
he hitched-up with a slow thinking quick drinking woman,
someone’s ex on a reliable government check.
Eventually settling down with her in a holler
in West Virginia.
He took his Stetson off, dutifully plowed her and the land
while collecting motor parts for his perfect fantasy car
one he could never quite toggle together
or ever drive.
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