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Ghost Truck

Dusk one evening

dialing back to

right after Disco

was ditched to the tune

of bad boys.

My cousin, Dennis

in his ’67 GMC pickup truck

we met on Lincoln Street

along evergreen row

where the trees lined

the public swimming pool and park

now shuttered for fall and

the cool rush of football fever.

We were in rare form,

runners, tacklers.

He was

kicking up dust and

spinning donuts

in that GMC,

gears three on the tree

beating Bandit’s Trans-Am.

I spotted him

and turned around

his truck door open,

he glances down

watching the cut of his tires

in the gravel.

He spies me

showing off in a massive spin-twirl

dust clouds in the night

thick and swirling

I look up to see

headlights and the outline of a truck

the GMC gliding along

sans driver

it came up beside me

and hung there rather eerily

cruising the night like a

ghostly James Dean legend

sideswiping the stop sign

ricocheting off and

heading for a line of parked cars.

Then I see Dennis

running like a track star

swearing, sweating

clenching his jaw

sprinting to catch it.

In 2012, they finally

straightened the sign

but you can still tell where

it was slightly bent,

no further damage done.

Published inpoetry

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  1. Lana, I’m picturing the scene! πŸ˜€πŸ˜€I have a feeling you have lots of these ‘wild’ stories to tell! Yeah, Van Halen is a heck of a way to start the morning…now wide awake and had to watch my favourite of Jump as well. Oh, those outfits!!!

    • You can’t go wrong with Van Halen, ha ha! And of course you can’t just watch one video either :D. This is a funny story, I stole this from my spouse as his life was more exciting than mine. I just usually use 1st person to write, I probably need to branch out more. Glad you liked it, Annika. May the rest of your week be a rockin’ success!

  2. You captured a slice of teenage life that I can relate to, Lana. Not the exact experience, but that wild rush of freedom that somehow we survived – slightly bent but with no harm done. Wonderful poem.

  3. Another great “story poem.” Oh, the foreshadowing. I read this part knowing things were headed nowhere good:
    He spies me
    showing off in a massive spin-twirl
    dust clouds in the night
    thick and swirling
    I think it’s funny you can still see the spot where it bent the stop sign, like a little reminder of how luck you both were. πŸ™‚

    • Luck was indeed there, Joan. I’ll tell you, it’s a wonder that guy survived at all through high school. He made it, and is happily coasting through his fifties, ha ha. Thank you πŸ˜€

  4. From a parent’s POV, this story is a nightmare! I suspect the kids enjoyed telling — and retelling — it, though!

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