The photos attached to the email
Came with a message
"Don't open while eating"
A foreboding message
Describing what turned out to be
A dog bite to the face
About thirty stitches
Will do the trick
She's rough and tumble
For a pretty girl
So I think she'll manage
The next day
My neighbor and I played chicken
On a road near my house
Not really
But he comes flying around corners
Like a bat out of hell
A curly headed
Crazy-eyed
Bat out of Hades
And drives in the center of the road
With cars parked on both sides
It's a wonder
Someone hasn't given him a beating
On the side of the road
Ripped from his vehicle
And strangled
(slightly)
Mangled
To prove a point
I fear some of the smaller children
In our neighborhood
Will not get the chance
To grow up
And become observant bats
With manners
And sense enough
To follow some
Of the many odd rules
That govern what we call
Society
After that
In an unprecedented exercise
My wife and I teamed up
To wash our beautiful little car
Usually we have someone else do it
But the time had come
To show our respects
To the sanctity of cleanliness itself
Especially in relation to the image of a vehicle
The inside had been neglected (dirt/vacuum)
And the outside had signs of playfulness (dirt/sponge)
And so it was time...
And in its motionless state
With a shroud of suds
It was not so much like preparing a body for entombment
But more like washing a baby
Silent and still
Fixated on something shiny and far away
We both had fun
My wife and I
She being even more excited than I
To have her teeny bopper car
Looking younger and more adolescent
Later that day
We were in a rush
And four kids
On two bicycles
Were in our way
On our street
The one that takes us to the main road
And congested as it may get
There is just no getting around
Two wobbling bicycles
Driving down the road
With kids on the handlebars
Talking to each other in parallel
My wife said
(with the windows up)
"C'mon you stupid kids"
"Get out of the road"
And I said
"Honey, they're just kids"
It instantly became a calm Saturday for me
And I was reminded
That we should be thankful
That we live in a neighborhood
Where kids can ride bikes
In the middle of the street
And not worry
About drugs
Or gangs
Or getting shot
All of which I mentioned with a smile
To which my wife said
"It's just that people drive like maniacs around here"
And, "They should be more careful"
Just then on the parkway
That very same day
A motorcycle had crashed
And billows of thick black smoke
Rose into the air
And could be seen for a mile or so
By both sides of traffic
The rescue teams
Entered the parkway
By closing off the exit ahead
And using that exclusively
To get their vehicles on and off
A few fire chiefs passed on the shoulder
And with only two lanes
We figured it could be a while...
When we finally got to the scene
They were hoisting the burnt bike
Onto a flatbed
And spreading some gravel on the ground
That soaks up the chemicals
And we passed by
And I wondered what that gravel was
In what seemed to be moments
Later
It was a devastating blow
Too ugly to stare at
Our little baby
With its face ripped off
I was avoiding a bicyclist
And had to watch
As they poured gravel around our car
To soak up the fluids
Leaking from the front
Where the hood used to be
The headlights and bumper
No longer a personified smile
But a wreck
Mangled
With the innards exposed
A tow truck came
And hoisted it up
Onto a flatbed
--
4.29.08
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