← Poetry

The Corvette

When Laura throws her head back to laugh her eyes completely dissolve into squints of joy. Her conversation delightfully peppered with Brown County-ism’s.. “….I mean and all that….” “…and what have you…” “…and this and that…” Once chiding me when I tried to move her wheelchair through the St. Louis airport.. “That’s their job. Leave it alone.” Seeing that I was shocked, she threw back her head..laughed…and the eyes dissolved.

Dylan Thomas wrote on aging, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Laura would flood it with a spotlight. As she rounds the far curve of 80 she floors it. Oh, the fuel-injector may be a bit clogged and the transmission in need of oil, but the pedal is to the metal, honey. Her spirit chassis hangs low to the ground with no tolerance for Baptist preachers, whiny old ladies, hard seats, or Republicans. Her five-gears-forward have been reduced to one and the reverse went out years ago, but there’s something under that hood that’s proved damned near unstoppable.

Some wonder why her eyes narrow to two sparkling slits when she laughs. If you’d look upon the headlights of a Corvette, you’d understand.