It isn’t meant to be beautiful,

this image of a red car

sinking into the rising

New Jersey flood water

but the water

is blue and glassy

and the red car,

so silent.

I am sorry

if this is your car,

or the car of your friend,

or if it reminds you of the car you drove

during your second year of college,

named after a girl,

Jenny or Stella.

You could say

the car in the newspaper

is dying.

It will never again thrum and roar

down the entrance ramp to the New Jersey Turnpike

nor fight for a parking space

at the Vince Lombardi rest stop.

It is simply

a red island

in a small lake,

resplendent,

grand,

blue water rising and spreading around it

like a gown.

∞

From the Fall 2014 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 31, No. 1)

© 2014 Anne Damrosch