two years and a thousand miles

Civic

 for David

The engine hasn’t turned over

since you stepped out.

Alone in the church parking lot,

I wander around its dark figure,  

admire your spray-paint stenciling

of Martin Luther King Jr.,

his left hand waving goodbye

beneath orange clouds of rust,

and the Banksy Balloon Girl,

carried away by white balloons,

each filled with a letter of FREEDOM;

she will meet with you soon.

Behind the dirty back windshield

there is a single, cake-flecked fork,

and an incomplete box of birthday candles,

twisted thin, melting in the morning sun. 

- Zack Strait