Kevin Brown
Jack Talks Trade-In
My ball-joints have begun to break.
Engine whines at every stop
sign. My college car finally fading.
The door I once opened for Melissa,
then Julie, jams when I go to load
groceries. Any new car is an upgrade;
they’ve all gone global
positioning, telling me where
I am and where I am not
and where I could be. The interior smells
like a stereotype, like my father’s first
Ford, the only new car he could afford,
bought the year the factory
felt he was foreman
material, could move men
as well as parts to be put together
down the line.
Everything here looks new,
though I know the sheen
will wither, the shellac of wax
will wane or chip before I leave
the lot, a woman’s voice repeating,
Recalculating.
Recalculating.
Recalculating.
Jack Talks Trade-In
My ball-joints have begun to break.
Engine whines at every stop
sign. My college car finally fading.
The door I once opened for Melissa,
then Julie, jams when I go to load
groceries. Any new car is an upgrade;
they’ve all gone global
positioning, telling me where
I am and where I am not
and where I could be. The interior smells
like a stereotype, like my father’s first
Ford, the only new car he could afford,
bought the year the factory
felt he was foreman
material, could move men
as well as parts to be put together
down the line.
Everything here looks new,
though I know the sheen
will wither, the shellac of wax
will wane or chip before I leave
the lot, a woman’s voice repeating,
Recalculating.
Recalculating.
Recalculating.
Jack is Quick, Narrowly Avoids Death
I was almost hit by a hearse
this morning; it moved so fast,
must have believed
a funeral is a fire,
the body in the back the one way
to extinguish it, leave people relieved,
not grieved. If this were a scene in a movie,
a matinee my friends and I wanted to try
ten dollars on, we would leave with shaken
heads, so heavy-handed
we would demand our
disbelief back, talk about it over tacos, canned
caliente the soundtrack, a starter of
queso fundido so spicy it makes
the movie seem subtle--Okay, I get
it, he looks both ways, but death runs
him over regardless; Mike mutters,
It comes around the corner too
quickly, can’t predict
or expect it, catches him
unaware—before moving to more
important matters: mortgages
barely made; Bixby’s unsurprising
unemployment; the looming
layoff of the NBA, the legality
of its lockout, and what we will watch
instead. We leave in different
directions to collect our cars, stand
on separate street corners, wait one
second longer,
then two,
before stepping into the street.
I was almost hit by a hearse
this morning; it moved so fast,
must have believed
a funeral is a fire,
the body in the back the one way
to extinguish it, leave people relieved,
not grieved. If this were a scene in a movie,
a matinee my friends and I wanted to try
ten dollars on, we would leave with shaken
heads, so heavy-handed
we would demand our
disbelief back, talk about it over tacos, canned
caliente the soundtrack, a starter of
queso fundido so spicy it makes
the movie seem subtle--Okay, I get
it, he looks both ways, but death runs
him over regardless; Mike mutters,
It comes around the corner too
quickly, can’t predict
or expect it, catches him
unaware—before moving to more
important matters: mortgages
barely made; Bixby’s unsurprising
unemployment; the looming
layoff of the NBA, the legality
of its lockout, and what we will watch
instead. We leave in different
directions to collect our cars, stand
on separate street corners, wait one
second longer,
then two,
before stepping into the street.
Jack is Rudely Awakened
The four a.m. phone call comes
like a heart attack; my heart stops,
starts again. But I have not died,
nor has anyone I know,
as far as I know, a motel’s
malfunctioning phone, same
as the sink stopper with a slow leak,
a morning shave made more difficult.
No one knows the number
to tell me if death has come
as it does, like a four a.m. phone call
or like the long letters my seventh-grade
girlfriend used to write in the summers,
described every detail—the taste
and appearance of her paste-like
oatmeal or soggy, sugar-laden
cereal, the milk blue or brown,
or the kiss she gave a stuffed bear
named Bonzo, her fuzz-laden lips
only stopped moving when asleep.
I knew the endings of those letters
before the beginning, knew before
I turned the twelfth or thirteenth
perfectly perforated page, the closing:
With love, if I was lucky;
otherwise, Sincerely.
The four a.m. phone call comes
like a heart attack; my heart stops,
starts again. But I have not died,
nor has anyone I know,
as far as I know, a motel’s
malfunctioning phone, same
as the sink stopper with a slow leak,
a morning shave made more difficult.
No one knows the number
to tell me if death has come
as it does, like a four a.m. phone call
or like the long letters my seventh-grade
girlfriend used to write in the summers,
described every detail—the taste
and appearance of her paste-like
oatmeal or soggy, sugar-laden
cereal, the milk blue or brown,
or the kiss she gave a stuffed bear
named Bonzo, her fuzz-laden lips
only stopped moving when asleep.
I knew the endings of those letters
before the beginning, knew before
I turned the twelfth or thirteenth
perfectly perforated page, the closing:
With love, if I was lucky;
otherwise, Sincerely.
Kevin Brown is a Professor at Lee University. He has one book of poetry, Exit Lines (Plain View Press, 2009) and two chapbooks: Abecedarium (Finishing Line Press, 2011) and Holy Days: Poems (winner of Split Oak Press Chapbook Contest, 2011). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again (Wipf and Stock, 2012), and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels (Kennesaw State University Press, 2012). He received his MFA from Murray State University.
