Holes and Vettes

Holes and Vettes

Bar Harbor. Maine. 2022. A baseball field.
Corvettes line up in rows, engines still
For once and owners preening
From their folding chairs, legs poking
Into the same grass that supports Life
Flight helicopters in emergencies
And soccer cleats. This earth withstands so much.

It’s a yearly gathering that’s paused two years
Thanks to global disease, but now the drivers
Are all maskless and showing off
Their cars to locals who wander
Between the lines, marveling.

“I will never be rich enough
To own one,” says a man
in a black t-shirt to a guy
with a firebird red model.

“I thought that too,”
The guy says. “Work hard.
You’ll get there.”

The first man moves to run
A finger across the car’s hood.
The owner flinches like it’s some kind of assault.
“Try hard,” he repeats. “You’ll get there."

We all try hard
To get there,
Inventing monologues
Of worth based on materialism,
Who owns what, how shiny
Our skins are, our hair, our cars,
Houses. We pretend like any of this
Fills up the holes we dig inside ourselves,
Inside the ozone, inside the earth.

Darkening faces,
Double visions. Horror.
The Vettes represent adventure
And freedom. Not being beholden
Despite the car loans required,
The interest rates. The American Debt.

“There are eight
Generations of car here,”
Says an organizer
With a yellow sunhat
Perched on her head.
“This is the car of dreams.”

American Dreams.
And that’s the thing.
Have you ever hit your head
On a poem or a wall
Or something else hard
And realized that your dreams
Aren’t actually yours?

Have you ever felt like you’re falling
Though you are standing still on a field
Surrounded by excess and shiny paint
Jobs and pride, merciless, assaulting,
And begged for stable ground
Before realizing you’re just making holes, too.
Maybe the holes are in a ball field,
Or in the Earth or the ozone
Or maybe—just maybe—in your own damn heart.

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems. These podcasts and more writing tips are at Carrie’s website, carriejonesbooks.blog. There’s also a donation button there. Even a dollar inspires a happy dance in Carrie, so thank you for your support.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Eric Van der Westen and the track is called “A Feather” and off the album The Crown Lobster Trilogy.

While Carrie only posts poems weekly here, she has them (in written form) almost every other weekday over on Medium. You should check it out!

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eric-van-der-westen/the-crown-lobster-trilogy-selection