Sport 27: Spring 2001
Donna Tusiata Avia — Dream Car
Donna Tusiata Avia
Dream Car
I am dreaming a used-car life
a big 1950s bird
with something American
scrawled in chrome across the back
a car salesman slides in beside me
without even opening the door
and I turn around and look
at the back seat stretched out behind me
like a tennis court
or a cemetery
I drive on making mental notes
about space and what to do with it
the salesman traces numbers in the air
and then of course I notice
what he isn't looking at:
bruised doors
panels soft as cheese,
steering wheel that drives you
to mercies of butter made like steel
he bares his teeth and tells me
not to worry eighteen hundred
will be just fine
and you hear yourself scream the names of saints
that up till now
have taken
no interest
in you
at all.