David Hill Road

Whoever owned this ’54 Chevy sedan
must not have been a mechanic
or a conjurer who could raise machinery
from the dead. Instead, too cheap
to have it towed, the car rests
in a traffic of weeds.
Seed tuffs poke through the grill
like steam issuing from an overheated radiator.
Plum trees blossoming form clouds of exhaust,
while a blackberry vine, a policeman, taps
at the driver’s window.
On clear summer nights,
under the bright headlight of the moon,
crickets hum a well tuned engine.
The Chevrolet appears to be speeding through
the soft blue landscape into tomorrow—
rushing into the future
of its own slow decay.

Mark Thalman's book, Catching the Limit, is published by Fairweather Books (2009) and is part of their Northwest Poetry Series. His poetry has appeared in Carolina Quarterly, CutBank, Many Mountains Moving, and Verse Daily, among others. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon, and he teaches English in the public schools. For more information, please visit markthalman.com.