A Poem by Emily Strauss

Rusty Parts

 

'38 Studebaker sits in the field

wheels long gone, sunk waist-

deep into alfalfa and tumbleweeds

 

come on Kenny go faster

pa's gonna catch us

 

windows long broken, grasshoppers

fly through, land on shredded seats

the plastic knobs cracked and dried

 

I'm gettin' shipped to Europe

You kin drive it to town, ok?

 

Doors rusted open or shut

Metal peeling, coated rust-red,

Holes show through the roof

 

We coulda used it for haulin'

But I ran outa gas on the hill

 

Field plowed around it now

Unnoticed it sinks deeper

Every year, rotting by slow bits.

 

 

 

 

Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry. More than 80 of her poems appear in public online and in anthologies. The natural world is her framework; she focuses on the tension between nature and humanity, using concrete images to illuminate the loss of meaning between them.