In the Third Month

First snow wet against the windshield.
I drive by the storefront where we found
his blue Toyota. How he loved that car–
put fur upon the dashboard to cover cracks–
then he and his girl devotedly stretched leather
across the back seat making a love nest.
And they went out to Western Auto and bought
a little fan, the kind bus drivers use,
and mounted it to blow down upon them
when they made love, parked by a roadside
or perhaps in one of those shadowed drive-ins.
It’s a weekend and I’m about my errands,
Bach’s Sleepers Awake on FM. The tears pour down
as I think how much he wanted to be a man,
simply a man with his woman and his car, lateer
his fireside books, those I still have,
saved too long to pass on–The Way
of All Flesh, A Shropshire Lad, Don Quixote,
and one stamped in gold but with all pages blank.

-David Ray