Bill Graeser

 

I’m on the side of the road, hood up,
watching the shiny cars pass, waiting
for a faded one, like mine, dented
with rust, to show the jumper cables to.

Someone who’ll look me in the eye,
who’ll say when I thank them—“It’s OK,
someday I’ll need a jump too.”

Like this we of “The Church of the Old Car”
rise from pews of worn upholstery,
open our hoods in offering and unite
with a pair of jumper cables,

common in the conviction that an old car
will get us there, and humbled for it is all
we can afford.  And when the weary engine

runs again we rejoice, as in witness to any
miracle, and return to the road richer
in brotherhood and bolder in the belief

that by the hands of providence
on the two ends of a jumper cable
we will make it there
in peace.