Nathaniel’s First Car

by J. K. Durick 

There was this clumping, then bumping,
Something in there had been clanging,
Then something was banging,
But now it all has stopped.

This is not the way this should be.
The road-side grows green with it –
Your money, your first claim of ownership
Become this empty sleeve, this third
Left boot, this vast array of I-told-you-so.
Your key chain has become ironic, like
The silent disk player or the stick-shift
You’ve finally learned to play.

This is not the way this should be.
There should be hours, there should be
Grace in this, the just return on the time
You spent dreaming of it. The freedom
It was to be has become this dark joke,
This dark reminder of the innocence
You spent on it, this monument to loss,
This monument to your new uncertainty.

This is not the way this should be.
You’re too young to be this tired of things.
Too young to know what every one must
Someday know – the irreversible nature of loss.

This is not the way this should be.
You should be driving off into the distance –
Your present assured, the future a mystery.
That is the way it all should be.