Thirsty Cars Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Those steep, tiring hills going home, I had been in town
bought a new kitchen sink, the second one in forty years,
nothing lasts, that’s how traders make their ill gotten
gains.

My car was exhausted trailing smoke, to lighten
its burden I alighted walked in front as it followed me
slowly.

On a flat stretch it teasingly overtook and drove
in front of me and down a track into a deep ravine where
feral donkeys live and run unlicensed garages I wasn’t in
the mood to play “follow the leader, ” so I walked home
past wayside bars where cars guzzled Brazilian cane fuel
and flashed their indicators,

I ignored this depravity and hasted away. Midnight, when my car pulled up outside, it had lost the kitchen sink and was splattered in manure
of the long eared members of the horse family.