Bumper Car
The old farmer had lost his bearings
they said. They took away his truck.
He wired his house and widened the
doorways, threw out the boxes and
the piles of magazines, cleared the
hallways. He networked wires and
laid down tin, completed circuits
and brought the bumper car out of
the barn. He hosed it off at fifty
degrees, wiped it down and shined
the chrome. Turned it sideways to
wrestle it through the front doorway.
Tin sheets rattle as the farmer flies
from room to room, sparks follow
and at night the place looks, from
the road, like Tesla lives there, slam
bang bumpety bump the car races
down the hallway room to room
through the doorways circle about
the kitchen shoot back down the
narrow hall careening off the loose
and flapping baseboards, sizzling
through the bedroom back into the
hall whirling at the pantry then the
bathroom speeding down the hall
again banging through the parlor
farmer howling steering laughing
beard flies scarf-like over shoulder
then he glides up to the large knife
switch on the wall, throws it, cuts
the power, sighs and steps gingerly
to the floor. Salami, crust of bread
shared with the no longer cowering
hound, the gleaming turquoise and
white bumper car sits in the hall,
waits to whirl the farmer back, to
resurrect some boyhood dreams.
Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel sculpture on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas. His short story collection (Night Train, Cold Beer) won publication by a university press and enough money to fix the soffits. Six more books since. A 5- time Pushcart nominee, his fiction and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals including Atticus, The MacGuffin, Southern Humanities Review, Rattle and The American Journal of Poetry. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it. Some work is at http://www.wisesculpture.com