Soul

John Rutherford

June 30, 2024

I've never owned anything

I didn't pay for in cash, 

a few thousand dollars 

in the form of a cashier's check:

my ticket to the open road. 

I'd had the red Kia Soul

(yes, the hamster car) 

for two months before the flood, 

a five-hundred year event, 

the second in two years. 

It survived when my Subaru did not, 

water over the gearshift, floating

soda-bottles drifting from under the seat

like icebergs, clear and clean

falling onto the silt left behind.

The oil changes and tire rotations

punctuate my months like birthdays,

anniversaries, inspections like Christmas

and voting: due annually, do if I remember,

and always pay the bill in full.

John Rutherford is a poet living and writing in Beaumont, TX. His work can be found in The Basilisk Tree, The Texas Poetry Assignment, and in his 2023 chapbook Birds in a Storm(Naked Cat Press). He is currently an MFA student at the University of St. Thomas(Houston).