Allyson Whipple - Two Poems

Love Song to a '94 Honda

Ike (whose
smiling condescension
is not to be trusted)
tells me she has six
months left to live,
so I probably shouldn't
be easing her up to 90 -
at least, not if I have
any hope of prolonging her time -
but the sky is so open
just like the carless
freeway, and she doesn't
complain (she's so content,
I can't even feel her sickness,
the rusting and rotting
of her interior), so I
press the accelerator,
feel her shift
smooth as ever,
the road taking up
over the sun-baked city.



Vacant Lot

There used to be a house here
now,
even the concrete has
been buried by vegetation, the
basement filled in
a fertile mausoleum to
memories long moved on.

All that's left
is the stump of a driveway,
which makes a convenient
turnaround for
lost drivers
who don't pay attention
to direction, hurrying
to finish the day and
get back home.



Allyson Whipple is a writer living in Austin, Texas. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Young American Poets and The Cleveland Review. In 2010, she founded literaryaustin.com in order to support local authors, publishers, and booksellers.