Pickup Truck
Father,
Some nights I sneak
into the garage to sit
in the passenger’s seat
of your old pickup truck
and dream of the highway on a summer’s
night: the green glow of the dashboard,
the lullaby of your voice
singing softly to yourself
as if underwater
as if timeless
the silver now has dulled to gray,
slick surface wounded with rust
and the last time
you turned the key
the engine choked on its own
death rattle
but some nights I see the moons
of your fingerprints on the dust
of the steering wheel
and I understand
what you meant
that night in the Carolina’s
we capsized in a roadside abyss
and you rocked the grounded wheels til
the airborne pitched dirt again:
Stay. Wait.
- © Danielle Mcmahon 2022
Danielle McMahon’s poems have appeared in Spinning Jenny (Issue 9) and Wicked Alice (Fall 2007), under her maiden name.
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