Prayer for a Country Driver

My windshield teaches me birds by their droppings.
My grill collects an insect museum.
My hood is green from hemlock pollen.
My glove compartment sounds alive with mice.
My rearview mirror wears a snakeskin shawl.
Don’t ask why I wasted years with furry dice.
My stick shift shakes like a water dowser.
My radio sometimes broadcasts tornado watches.
My favorite roads are nothing but tire ruts and goldenrods.
My dashboard displays nests, birch bark, artists fungus,
turkey feathers, and fossil rocks of trilobites.
Still, I’m searching for a good pair of antlers for the hood.
My bumpersticker reads: “Back to the Pleistocene.”
Fortunately, salt-craving porcupines haven’t eaten my brake lines.
At the repair shop, surely, they’ll bless my car for inspection.

–By Will Nixon

This entry was posted in Poems and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.