Poem

Chest Fever

I gunned my 1959 Ford F-150 with

it’s ring shot FE V-8 engine, burning

oil, belching fire, crank thrumming,

setting off a deep vibration

that radiated out and engulfed

the quiet Catskill morning, through

West Saugerties, New York.  Overlook

Mountain lolled off to the north,

humped and blue behind the white cube

of the Esso station, two pumps

and one filthy bathroom.  I set the brake

and palmed the key chained to a piston

that hung just inside the repair bay

while the truck idled rough shod

through rising octaves.  For the record,

I washed my hands when I was

finished then revved the engine to a

crescendo and drove away.  It was only

later that I recalled the thin man

with the bushy beard, head huge

under a flying widows peak, buying

cigarettes and a Coke, lingering

near my Ford, summer 1968, absorbed

in the racket exploding under the hood. 

I was listening to Music From Big Pink,

not for the first time, when it hit

me, the V-8 sound of the greasy Lowrey

organ that drives Chest Fever, grateful

for my part, however small, in

Garth Hudson’s opus.