Buy and Sell

More than a to b, an old car is a stand-in
for desire, thwarted and otherwise. Backseat intimacy
of buckles and belts, hot vinyl. Steering wheel sticky
with sugar and grease. Every groove catalogued,
every rock that’s ever pocked the windshield, split
a headlight on the logging road to Kennedy Lake.
Fingers crossed, never knowing when the tranny will go,
but that it will, and soon. Such a fierce and tenacious love
that inevitably lets us down, on the side of the road
changing a tire, or waiting for a tow truck at midnight,
the alternator shot. Last straw in a lengthy list
of hard-to-find parts.

So you give in to the sell
but it’s just a bunch of tire kickers
with minor interest, who talk mileage and rust,
don’t care for the particulars of habit, the slight pull to the left
or the wind-shimmy on a straight stretch;
they raise eyebrows at your nicknames.
So you wait it out for the person who tilts their head
at your travelogues. Take a couple hundred less to know
she’ll be treated right; you can hand over
without worry she’ll end up a junker for parts,
least not yet, surely she’s got a few good years left.