New Car Smell - Jan 12 2021

 

New Car Smell

Jan 12 2021

It doesn't have that new car smell.

Like dialing a rotary phone,

writing with pencil and paper,

and a single TV

with 3 scheduled stations,

one more thing

the young will never know.

That dizzying miasma

of crude plastic gassing-off

and synthetic carpets fuming

that filled our space-age cars

with their intoxicating newness.

Back when Detroit had its swagger

and cars burned leaded gas

that was cheaper than soda.

Back when kids jostled for legroom

in the big vinyl backseat,

no air bags, head rests, seatbelts.

Back when dads chain-smoked Camels

and the air was blue with tobacco

and we all happily inhaled

his stale second-hand smoke.

So it was either take a chance with cancer,

or crack a steamed-up window

and catch your death of cold.

These days, the world is cleaner.

We buy safer cars

that almost drive themselves.

And young people

are more conscious of health

than we ever might have been.

Even though their eyes are glued to screens,

hoping to be seen

and feeling left out.

Even though carbon is increasing

and winters are warming

and forest fires rage,

massive gyres of plastic

are circling out at sea.

Cars that stunk of poison

we must surely have absorbed.

So when the end comes

will we all be toxic waste,

our bodies wrapped and buried

in hermetically sealed graves?

How odd, then

that our old abandoned cars

are open to the air

a d fresh as early spring

— windows busted

and crumbling to rust

in weedy junkyard lots.

Some half-smoked butts

still crumpled in the ashtray.