the old Volvo that was parked across from me is now across the street at a taco stand, its driver ordering food. i worry for him. his squeaky axles giving up the ghost, falling to landfills–Volvos are expensive to maintain.
i worry for the old woman not wearing a face mask. my uncle died of asphyxiation with COVID-19.
i am not worried about my car, where it sits hugging a curb. the other day a man keyed it because he could not make a perfect right turn out of his driveway. “so sorry” he repeats, “i am not well,” could he do anything, “please don’t call the cops.” i exchanged a favor: haul some of my junk for a keyed driver’s side, because, what the hell, my car is 23 years old, and scabs and scars tip the hat to this ironic story of erosion and entropy that cars, like bodies, like mountains, recapitulate.
i like having old things. bartering with what the world has already given, rather than reading/writing it off like some dictionary of $ signs.
material disperses, liquifies, freezes, becomes gas, becomes nothing the further up the ladder you climb. and gazing past the stratosphere at the stars is feverishly existential, insofar as it reminds you–reminds me that i am not a gargantuan ball of gas, seemingly eternal, long dead ere i am (seen), lit ablaze-
-nor am i so consumed with an ending that i, myself, should consume all matter in my path to nothingness-
no, i am quite content, feet fallen to ground, making sense of what keyed cars matter.