David Rosenthal

Bechtle’s Alameda Gran Torino, 1974

A station wagon shining in the sun —
it seems as though it ought to be ironic.
An obvious scenario is one
in which a housewife pours a gin and tonic:

returning from some errand or another,
she settles down for game shows on TV
to dream of being anybody other
than the body she’s turned out to be.

A variation has a husband driving
past the house in something fast and red,
embarking on a quest to find surviving
hairs to comb across his balding head.

Another version has a teenaged daughter,
known to every high school boy in town
for swallowing tequila like it’s water,
pregnant underneath her cap and gown.

Or maybe it’s a strung-out teenaged son
who, rummaging for something he can sell,
comes across his father’s service gun,
and every chamber bears an unspent shell.

A little less clichéd: a racecar bed,
unmade, and patinated with a layer
of heavy dust and words no voice has shed,
beside a shelf of toys that show no wear.

Or maybe what’s unsaid is more severe —
a twelve-year-old who since the age of four
has gone to bed each night in hopeless fear
of Daddy sneaking through her bedroom door.

Or maybe what’s unsaid is more mundane —
those words that stand for that which passes show,
when all that shows is clear and clean and plain,
like faux wood panels, chrome, and midday glow.

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