The Junkyard Meditations
July 28, 2008
I haven’t seen it since Saturday morning,
the crumpled encasement of metal
that once housed my body
every time I got in. Shards of glass
cover the front seats. How had I not gotten cut?
The smash in the windshield has etched
a perfect spiderweb pattern.
I hadn’t remembered that the passenger’s-side airbag
had also deployed, its diaper-turquoise a contrast
to the tan that had exploded in my hands.
I gather in bags and a leftover knapsack
what remains: maps I’d just bought,
my CDs of Michael Feinstein and Misty River,
a pair of black loafers in case it got cold,
the tefillin and matching yarmulke
my friend Sylvia’s son wore
before he died of AIDS. The car sits forlorn,
not unlike a parent, once indomitable,
now vulnerable and small,
the way my mother once said,
“I can’t help you anymore.”