Cars, Walking, etc., an Unmailed Letter

“In the last three days Sheridan learned to walk,

and left the quadruped behind—for some reason

small pets avoid him.…” Who shakes hands with a dead friend?

I see a huge, old rattling brown paper bag,

a picture, no fact; when I try to unwrap it,

it slips in my hands. It is our old car

resurrected from the must of negligence,

warning like Hector’s Ghost from the underground—

the car graveyard … now no longer obsolete.

I do not drive in England, yet in my thought,

our past years, especially the summers, are places

I could drive back to if I drove a car,

our old Burgundy Ford station-wagon summer-car,

our fourth, and first not prone to accident.