Improv with Whiskey & Cars by Linda Bryant

That night, a broken axle, sticks

inside me, sweet burnt

odor of bourbon & Marlboros. Drunk

on Wild Turkey, Mama cussed Daddy

out, my sister & I bawling. The two-hour

ride home in the white ’63, the one

with tailfins. My father driving

mute into a downpour. Why

do I like enormous salvage

yards & side roads where tractors

rust alongside crumbling

sheds? Isn’t there music in rust

& abandonment? A country

song in a decaying barn, corrosion

of an old thresher, blackening

husk of an El Camino? Salt

ate mother’s ‘78 Camaro until

the floor fell out & then she offered

it to me as a “gift.” Years later, to make

up for it, when she could no longer

drive, she gave me a perfect, low- 

mileage Grand Marquis with electric

seats, factory window tinting & cruise

control. I trashed it. When unemployment

ran out my husband got 30-hours at the auto

parts store. I sold our beater

& walked to work. I graze still for spare

parts, hunt for a door without rust

or reminders. I can hear mama

yell, Bill, fix the damn Ford. I smash

a transistor to my ear to muffle

their whiskey-fueled scrap. A disc

jockey gripes about Dylan

going electric. My sister’s gone

existential, her head’s buried

in Huxley & Camus. Daddy devours

an unfiltered smoke like he’s trying

to shrink into a chamber of hot

brown leaf & nicotine

& he walks away.

Linda Bryant published widely as a career journalist for over 30 years before devoting herself to poetry. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times and won two national writing fellowships.  She lives in Bighill, Kentucky, where she operates Owsley Fork Writers Sanctuary.