Today's Chevrolet

Libbey 39 Elizabeth Libbey Today's Chevrolet Dead reckoning, I drive back roads home from mother-and-dad's in my husband's black Chevy pickup 4x4, aluminum packets of turkey and cranberry, pumpkin pie jiggle on the seat beside me, and I'm thankful for late afternoon in the Berkshires, for my red dress in which I'm superb, for Greg Brown on the radio singing, "Dream On," and for so much more because here in the U. S. of A. there's so much to remember to be thankful for. At forty-four, already I've eaten my fill, maybe other peoples' as well, I've eaten my way through this world of localized plenty where Having is the place I happen to live, love to be sailing beautiful, no pilgrim hoping Heavenward, not me: my better life's right here, wrapped up in packets of good luck, good taste, money in the bank, oh, boundless New World, I've inherited you down to the last wedge of freedom, I'm your fashionable heartbeat making history, making time. I'm like some teen queen doing the old beebop-jive on my accelerator pedal, tapping the heel of my hand fast, faster on the steering wheel until my sheer power charges the air so, in this sacred place, this Chevy cab, this state of grace, that I must roll down the window, inhale. Figure out where in Hell I am. ...