My little horse must think it queer …
Girl, risk averse and fearful of change, swaps certified pre-owned 2014 Toyota Corolla for new one. She folds nine years of a life purged from the trunk, side door panels, and glove box into blossoms to lay at the feet of our 139K miles journeying:
- 100+ audiobooks with engine idling in brutal ATL rush hour traffic in this car
- Two cross country road trips including college tours to Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ohio in this car
- Sunday on the Black Dragon- cold truck stop fried chicken, soda sipped from “I Love NY” paper cups in this car
- White petals from the gardenia snatched from Cam’s grandmother’s yard clung to our mouths when he pressed against me and I against this car
- Hauling the essentials from ATL to MA – low country moss to Cape Cod Bay – in this car
- “You belong here,” I told her. “How lucky is Smith College to get you!” Pulled away from the lane reserved for student drop-off on move-in day – my heart, and yellow and white gingham scarf at my throat in this car
- Called my mama, a mile from the college campus, crying and she said, “look, it could be worse, your cousin’s kid is off to jail, Liz is just going to college. Woman up!” Somebody gotta keep it real in this car
- Drove pitch black streets along the Plymouth harbor in search of the only restaurant with power during our first nor’easter in this car
- Neighbor’s chimney and a whole tree fell in front, behind, and on top of this car
- Killed a spider with the metal point of my stadium umbrella the day I returned from my first oncology appointment, forced a crack in the windshield of this car
- My mama drove me to radiation five days a week for six weeks – she held emesis basins and my hair after chemo in this car
- A handicapped placard and “I’m with Her” tattooed on the ass of this car
- Poster board and pussy hats on the passenger seat in this car
- KN95 masks and bleach wipes plague the crevices in this car
- Six feet from friends, holler out the driver’s side window in this car
- Drove through a tornado in this car
- Hit something hard in the road on the way to Maine, made it to the poetry reading on time – bent rim on the back passenger side of this car
- Taylor Swift, Tony Bennett, and Tupac at full volume; get a bucket and a mop for this WAP WAP WAP splish splashin’ all over this car
- I can see you and your future wife and babies living in a house like that, I say, pointing out a yellow-door half Cape near the general store. “Thank you for accepting me, mom.” I became ally in this car
- Throwin’ up my hands when I do my sexy dance to 90’s R&B at the stoplight. Liz says my arms are like an orangutan. We laugh so hard she spits her iced tea all over the back seat and I pee a little in this car
