Jalopy

I do not trust this bucket of bones body,
Ramshackle, jury-rigged, clanging as it rumbles,
puttering farts pumping air bubbles through awkward piping
angles that don't quite close,
lines not quite straight,
all put together half-assed,
one mistake covering another.
I do not like driving it through my day-to-day
or on long trips far out of help's reach
relying on it like a child on a driving drunk
probably being fine.
A friend of mine said, "A man will drive himself mad
listening to the sounds a car makes,"
And so for years I chose not to listen at all,
washing my ears squeaky clean in decibel waters,
letting irregular heartbeats and phantom lumps live like dings I never noticed.
But the beating swelled from beneath the gas pedal,

Overcame the tumult as if to yank a tow chain named for my children
And I woke again, attuned to the whole chattering lot.
I can't help but give ear to every hum and interference,
squealing and crack of corner-bones on my aluminum can frame,
the slow glug of oil through my veins that probably means nothing
until it doesn't.
I can't ignore the certain knowledge that my innards are rusting, waiting to err,
that one day without question they will crumble and bottom out like viscera.
I can't be the dilapidated pile on the highway curb, ragless window, rotting
while my loves walk unsheltered,
for damage fast eroding,
jalopies themselves.