The
1940 Ford sits in splendor
in
the undoored garage, waiting
patiently
for its driver who never
drives
anywhere without her hat,
one
of her Sunday hats, pinned
neatly
to her gray hair. The boy
sits
in the passenger seat, waiting
impatiently
for the next journey
around
town, knowing the Ford
will
inevitably break down,
usually
in what the lady will
consider
a forsaken or vaguely
threatening
neighborhood, but it
will
be a new adventure, wherever
the
Ford sputters and stops. People
are
always kind and respond
to
the knock by the lady
with
the gray hair kept in place
by
a Sunday hat, the boy at her side
wondering
how long it would be
this
time for the tow truck to arrive.
This
is another in a series of poems about growing up in the South, suggested by my
friend Nancy Rosback. My
grandmother drove a 1940 Ford that looked exactly like the one in the
photograph.
