My body is an old car.

Spark plugs have fouled my lungs.

Exhaust smoke stings my nose

and tastes like buses.

My windshield is smudged.

I can feel a thump in my chest,

like a cylinder missing a stroke.

My skin is cracked like vinyl upholstery.

I should drive to Dr. Mutter’s in Packer,

or Rob’s Auto Service in Diehl.

My mouth tastes like fuzzy dice.

No, more like buses.

I wonder if I still have that car wash coupon?

If I did, it would be bodacious,

because a good cleaning would fix me right up.

But, “no matter where you go, there you are.”

and nothing looks better than the hot wax of denial.

Or, sloppy as a surgeon,

I could leap into the junkyard compactor,

squeezed out the other end as a cube.

(Brewster looks dense and solid, don’t he?)

But none of that will really repair the damage,

and my beautiful carburetor will be all that’s left

to comfort me in my final days.

Non compus mentis, I worry,

as the odometer laughs at me with numbered teeth.

I sit and wait in the bannered lot,

wearing a sign that reads, “as is.”

03/15/2004

Author's Note: [Another writing exercise from The Practice of Poetry by Robin Behn and Chase Twitchell (eds.)....]

Posted on 03/16/2004
Copyright © 2026 Bruce W Niedt