For you, Ka

Here's a poem I wrote apparently in September 2013. It's a (comedic/serious) eulogy for my parents' car which I used to borrow a lot to go camping, driving to and from University, etc. I performed the poem at The Arts House open mic a week after I'd written it. 

Ka, with Nicola

For you, Ka 

Over a deep blue bonnet the sky passes, partitioned by street lights.

Open to changing weather, to changing circumstance - to moving there, and back;

the world passes over us and, under your uncertain chassis, it opens out.

Another time perhaps we could have stayed together, if money weren't so tight,

if love made life-spans coincide, or made our lives into fixed wholes:

so that we would meet - be together - and then end - together.

But you can only make financial sense for so long.

Would it make it better if I said it kills me to leave you there, each time I get out and go to the Co-op? Each time the song of human friendship or romance left you alone - in the shade or the blinding sun. By the bay. Mum won't let us smoke in you so we get out and hang around - did you mind? Did you ever mind anything? - I glance looks at your enigmatic brow, deep blue pronounced forehead, matt wheel arches. Is this my first car? I remember asking myself, is this it? I stood on the edge of an endeavour - a motion towards 'growing up'. And you, in part, propelled me.  

Do you remember when I drove you into a line of traffic cones on the motorway?

Strange how our relationship until now has been entirely wordless

that we spoke through functional exchanges of petrol for propulsion - movement

through space - but for that exchange, in the very least, I should say: Thank you, Ka.

But by 'thank' what I really mean is to strip you of your insides,

to compact you, to deny your significance, and to condense you back into objecthood:

A clump ('do you remember?' I repeat weakly) without memory or meaning.

So perhaps 'thank you' are not the words to use, but instead should I say

that, until the time when I too am compacted and bereft of meaning,

I will not forget who you were, Ka.