Poem

Photo by RP Thomas

Old Fury

One exterior wall covered with license

plates from at least 27

states was the old woman’s idea—stolen

from a photo she’d seen in an old magazine.

Not a garage at all, but a bare and unsecured

portage of recycled planks, the structure

and the ‘57 Fury somehow gave the old woman

stature among her curious friends along Colver Road.

A vintage Plymouth with enormous fins,

the car was the same color as the woman’s fine,

flushed jowls when she drank her gin, and the

neighbors always wondered if it be by design—

The old man’s idea of a prank—for unlike his wife

he was much loathed in Talent and along Colver Road.

The car sat there day after day for years, undriven,

until the old woman died of cancer in ‘97. 

The old man, who died in ’88 and preferred his

Chevy pickup and his whiskey straight, never bothered to 

teach his wife how to drive, which explains why the 

Fury is so pristine and Colver Road is filled with such life.

TS