the unfinished indefatigable poem

I enjoyed inhaling the pungent

scent of automobile exhaust,––

the back-thrust of leaded gasoline. 

I liked just about everything of cars as a kid;

the sense of tactility in the shifting of three
forward gears on the column,
the tight-sprung tension of the clutch –– the rotating
crank of the windows, the fuzzy headliners,

smooth to the palm one way, a tickling resistance the other way

and earlier, the manual choke, which when manipulated
with a smooth pull of its knob from the dashboard
often saved the family's Sunday morning drives to the Narrows
picnic grounds with an added spritz of gasoline to the stubborn carburetor.

what else...

they could be identified; each make and model

formed in sheet metal with its own distinctive body type.

a Ford looked like one.

a Chevy looked like itself.

a Cadillac sighting was a miracle.

we looked forward to yearly changes in body sculpture,
fuel delivery systems and the ever challenging increases in engine horsepower.

all were points of distinction in my neighborhood.

understand, it had everything to do with the make
and model choices of our fathers;
what we saw pulling-up to the curbstones at 5:30 PM.

If one had an edge in horsepower, it was countered with

an edge in quarter mile elapsed time, which was countered by
best in top-end performance.
miles-per-gallon ratings were never considered
meaningful enough to be introduced into the debate
of Ford versus Chevy versus Dodge versus Pontiac...

the speedometers topped-out at 140 miles per hour.

my father, on the road for much of his working life would never come close.

those who came close became our fabled, early dead.

Manny Nunes,

riding solo in his hot '57 Chevy, six times rolled-over
nearing the end of the quarter-mile line of route 24 north.

Paulie L'Heureux,
hot-rodder, southend of town, eulogized in Leonard Dufresne's:
"L'Heureux's Last Ride"

and "Cal" Sousa-Philipe, who drove his powerful '57 Ford Galaxie

"Green Stuff" directly into the "Entering Westport" sign on route 6 East,
the needle frozen at 138. 

Quequechan, 1957 (?)  / 1959