but I agonized anyway, my wakefulness the rail
that kept my parents’ dark blue car uncrushed
by matching nights, my vigilance a warranty for music boxes’ transmissions:
I destined
their tiny engines and tinny songs to end
both at once, timed their tuned combs’ coasting
to a stop in pin drums’ seams. My childhood was not an agony--not at all--but fitting a pair
of wheels to the car wash’s tracks, yielding
to the crush of gallop brushes, dervish pine trees,
I still fear for my parents driving in darkness and I still watch as mitter curtains sweep
wet braille from my windshield, gently
obliterating untended songs and think how strange
the pang of metal waltzes failing to resolve.
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