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| Phoebe Wilcox |
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| Phoebe Wilcox lives in eastern Pennsylvania . Some of her favorite things are John Banville novels, sushi, salamanders (as long as she doesn’t have to touch them; they have cute hands) and picking blueberries. Her novel, Angels Carry the Sun is pending publication with Lilly Press and an excerpt from a second novel-in-progress has been published in Wild Violet. Recent and forthcoming experiments may be found in The Chaffey Review, Emprise, Shoots and Vines, The Linnet’s Wings, Calliope Nerve, Bartleby-Snopes, The Black Boot and others. Her story, “Carp with Water in Their Ears,” published in River Poets Journal was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. |
| Car Problems In the junkyard they have beer in the soda machine and if you are a lovely young woman on your own looking for a new distributor you might find a man with a wild beard and engineer cap lecherously looking after you. His love is a rusty body, stale sun-bled seats bald tires, and an odometer with 325,000 women on it. Aren’t those little zeros just like the “o’s” of their open mouths, doing what women do: breathing, nagging, measuring miles in miniature. The stuffing, like coarse old body hair, sticks out of a split in the vinyl seat. Many lemons I have had. One died in a fire. Did I laugh or did I cry by the side of the highway while six men stopped to extinguish us? I can’t remember, though I know I felt like doing both. It was a lemon that smelled like gasoline for awhile before it left me forever. Lovers are like Volvos. I know they’ll slide off the road in the snow but I know I’ll be safe when the inevitable crash comes. Another of my cars sounded like popcorn popping under the hood. It was given to my Dad by an alcoholic who had his license suspended but could still walk to the bar. We popped popcorn together for about two weeks before the angels claimed it. Junkyard angels, they have steel wings fashioned from split hoods And carry sabers made of windshield wipers. Those sabers burn with the wrath of stranded drivers and their vinyl, cloth, and leather garb has a pine tree air freshener scent. Hub cap breast plates and stick shift lessons. Angels teach, us not to stall out on a hill. Back to the junkyard and the search. The guy. The Distributor. Distributor, indeed. Distributors: have the same caps, same wires, same drive, same sparks. Leave it, this greasy beer-dressed kiss undone in the soil with the lonely, embedded gasket that once rode with a queen. Same sunny day tolerance A faceless, guileless, shameless guarantee shines down right now as did an hour ago on the antics of the human race. |