Family Station Wagon by Jack Powers

Tommy Carroll was the first to get his license and we could pile fourteen guys
into his mom’s Ford Country Squire if three of us sat on the lowered tailgate.

Suddenly our world expanded past Ada’s Variety, out of bike range,
across town lines on long drives to anywhere, to nowhere.

We jammed half our ninth grade team into that car when playing football,
just meant more time with my friends without thoughts of high school stardom.

Saturdays, we’d drive down 95 to play miniature golf or see a drive-in movie.
On the way back sparks flew from the heels of our loafers scraping the highway.

Even on Thanksgiving or Christmas, I’d try to get out to see Tommy, Brian
and Dave because they felt more like family than anyone sitting around that table.

Jostling and joking and shout-singing to the AM radio, time flew by faster
than Tommy could crank up that old wagon even though he hit 90 once on a dare.

When we’d hit a bump, our butts would jump off the tailgate and we’d shout and
hold on to each other as we hurtled backwards, sparks rising from the dark road.



Jack Powers is the author of Everybody’s Vaguely Familiar and has had poems in The Southern Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Poet Lore and elsewhere. He won the 2015 and 2012 Connecticut River Review Poetry Contests and was a finalist for the 2013 and 2014 Rattle Poetry Prizes. He recently retired from teaching special education in Redding, Connecticut. Visit his website: http://www.jackpowers13.com/poetry/.