A MEMORY FROZEN IN TIME
I offered to give my classmate’s friend,
a farmer’s daughter, a ride back home.
I admired her shapely body and blond hair
before she climbed into the rumble seat
of my ’31 Model A Ford—with 6 unborn kids
inside her in the sweltering summer sun.
We drove past cornfield after cornfield
from Iowa City to the coast of the Pacific,
harmonizing tunes in an American Songbook,
until the car and I began to overheat
and her face grew as red as her 4-H Heirloom
winning beefsteak tomato.
We rang the night bell at a Dreamland Motel.