Darrell Petska

Elegy for Grit and Gumption

A shack with an overhead door,
a grimy window, an unspeakable john,
and a back door just because:
West Side Radiator—40 years an eyesore
to the city planners, the shop itself a hub for
errant vehicles and their owners who’d linger
for a cuppa and a chat with the self-made
host as congenial as his shop was antediluvian.
The upscalers’ disdain failed to penetrate
the thin walls buttressed by the affability
welling inside like an overheating radiator.
Only Death has managed that (hundreds mourning),
loosing the bellowing bulldozer of progress
to level the shop in a trice—a lifetime’s labor
reduced to a parking lot where cars line up like
lolling turtles as their radiators grumble and rust.

Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor. His poetry and fiction can be found in 3rd Wednesday Magazine, First Literary Review–East, Nixes Mate Review, Verse Virtual and widely elsewhere (conservancies.wordpress.com). A father of five and grandfather of six, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife of more than 50 years.