by Annette Gagliardi
Papaver Californicum* (Black Chevy)
We headed downtown in the black Chevy borrowed from someone’s dad who had it hidden in his garage for the past thirty years. It’s a wonder we could get the thing started, especially with our lack of mechanical skills. But together, we persisted—finally succeeded.
Now we are racing down the highway, feet out the windows, lapping up the air and pretending to be unaware of those stares from other folks in other cars—not Chevys, not enjoying the fresh air after three days of torrential rain. Rain-washed air so clean, so lean of particles that we can readily gulp it up and not choke on a stroke or splinter of anything. Good old H2O-freshens and demotes in one fell swoop, then reveals!
These past years of hiding in plain sight have taken their toll on all of us and now we MUST race the wind and feel the breeze on our skin, let the moist air and the dust out of our pores before we go insane. The Rain made life miserable, simply devastating, yet possible.
This now. This is the time of our life—the moment we blossom. Like the Fire Poppies that are re-born when the California coast burns, we regurgitate ourselves into existence—we bloom after drenching rains when the sun returns to soften our edges and gather us to it, to light us up like fireworks.
But this CAR. Wow. Who knew substance could go so fast? Who knew the feel of speed, the need for such movement, the adrenaline rush of such a fine-tuned machine in motion could send us out into the openness of this world?
And how do these folks feel ambling about freely in single file, in separation from each other, with no parts touching, no continuity to hold onto? How do they not fear for their lives? We are, at least in the confines of this car, melding ourselves to each other as we travel. We, at least, are communing with the flow of progression, merging, fusing, blending together in order to experi-ence this surge, this rush, this hurtle, as we zip, as we go . . .
go . . . go . . . go into the light, as we fly, we soar, we dissipate expanding ourselves, expending, evaporating, vaporizing!
What a rush!
*Papaver Californicum- Fire Poppy
Papaver Californicum has been published in Fallow Ground, Inwood Indiana Press and available at the website https://inwoodindiana.com/papaver-californicum-by-annette-gagliardi/ on Au-gust 8th, 2020, and in print, August 10, 2020.
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