Driving Down NASCAR Lane I Notice the Empty Lot Where our Rented Trailer Sat for Many Years By jim bourey

I did the best I could cleaning

the rented trailer. It was old, dirty,

full of pet hair and beer cans,

sad prints of beautiful places

in cheap frames hanging at odd angles. 

The stove (my god that stove) was a sure 

source of disease. I got it mostly clean.

Then I drove the 500 miles north

in the piano store delivery truck

to get our stuff.

She had everything packed,

ready to go. But she was still

angry. At least the kids 

were excited. So, we drove 

back south, me in the truck 

with the oldest, her in the beater brown

Nova with the little one. We stopped 

more often than we should have.

I might have been purposely delaying

our arrival. She wasn’t going to like it,

this old green mobile home in the run down

park, on NASCAR Lane, for god’s sake.

We got to the trailer on that hot summer day in 1980.

She walked through the place, glancing 

around, tight lipped. 

I showed the girls their rooms. 

When I looked back down the hall

to the kitchen, she was kneeling in front of the stove,

sponge and Easy-Off Oven Cleaner 

in her rubber-gloved hands. 

At least she wasn’t sobbing. 

She was just trying to clean up my mess.

jim bourey is an old poet who lives on the edge of the Adirondacks. His books include Out There and Back Again and The Distance Between Us, both from Cold River Press. He also co-wrote Season of Harvest with poet Linda Blaskey, published by Pond Road Press. His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies. He can often be found reading aloud in dimly lit rooms. jim lives in Dickinson Center, NY with his wife Linda.