Family Car

In the backyard, the rusted red Mustang

is propped on cinderblocks, wheels missing.

Daddy swears he’ll fix it, have himself a sports car.

Mama suns on its roof. Her body oiled

with cooking grease, she boils and burns.

Before the yellow-jackets take over the passenger’s seat,

my brothers and me pretend to drive it too fast

along those red clay roads, open it up on

Highway 65 towards Birmingham,

roll down the windows, turn up the radio, all of us

swigging co-colas, getting high on moonpies

and letting that Alabama landscape slide

right off our backs.

Otherwise, the car just sits among the weeds, until

we move to an apartment without a backyard,

and Daddy calls the junk man.

The three of us balance on the chain-link fence,

sip on Kool-Aid from Dixie Cups, and watch

our get-away car ramble down the road.