The Plymouth Valiant
Rain made the windshield wipers work hard
to keep up as someone shouted, or cried.
All fights happened in the car. In those days
when the front seat was one long bench
one of us girls would climb over, wiggle into
the middle, and watch the wet dark hit the windshield.
Those days are vanishing, rearview mirror, rain
on the road, water in the wheel wells.
We will never be, again, the family in the car.
It is already gone, my mother passing, a door,
even our memories of it vanish. We sang
Swingin’ Along the Open Road and
Dona Nobis Pacem, in a round. One car,
a Plymouth Valiant, beyond rust now,
in a junkyard, the seats long gone,
rain-soaked sponge and torn vinyl.