Friday, January 2, 2015

A Lament for AMC


I was born in 1988,
the same year you folded and were bought out
by people who think that left-handed lug nuts
are a pretty neat idea.

Twenty six years later
evidence you existed is hard to come by-
the truck my father traded for $800 and a rifle
is long gone by now, in the care of someone
I'll never meet
and all I'm left with are stories told
by old folks who can still remember

Going off the road in a broken down Gremlin
bought from some bloke for two hundred bucks,
or getting a crate full of car, some assembly required,
back when “Jeep” really meant something.

I'm nostalgic for a time I have no right to be,
an era I never experienced, not really,
besides fading memories of an old Commanche pickup,
and seeing a yellow Pacer parked outside a barn
halfway to nowhere.

And I would have bought it if I'd had the cash
just to experience it,
just to have it,
even though I know it would be a terrible idea.


(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)