Summer Lee © 2004 All Rights Reserved

Keeping What It Wants

The car next to the shoreline in August,
like resting in the hot, thirsty mouth of a giant.
She falls asleep on the hood,
in the stare of the funhouse wall joker.

The moon’s melt-burn face
welds her heart to that surface—
standing in the morning, she is an elaborate skeleton,
heart left beating above the engine.

That body walks into the boardwalk’s breakspace,
pushes aside the misty spider web air,
and disappears.

Driving home alone, empty cans beat percussion
in the back seat, the merry-go-round
sings a song to the car, which knew
where to go and where to never go back.

Robert Krut
Copyright © 2004

Robert Krut’s poetry has appeared in Barrow Street, Salt Hill, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and the Mid-American Review, among others. Work has also been published online in Tarpaulin Sky, Nidus, and the 2 River View. Currently, he teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and lives in Los Angeles.

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