BLUEPEPPER: New Poetry by Danielle McMahon

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’s poems have appeared in Spinning Jenny (Issue 9) and Wicked Alice (Fall 2007), under her maiden name.

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