1971 Pontiac LeMans


Auto in sunlight: every trace of gloss
Is dulled a rusting green.
Even the fenders are a dirty chrome
Which blunts light like a pine log;
Still, it runs.

This is the car someone abandons
At a grassy roadside,
Like an old punt, rotten-hulled,
Sunk in river muck above the seats.
Near this realization,

It will do 90 still.
Or, filled with gasoline, will drive all night
Toward any destination;
It can kill.
This is the real world.