Rental

The rental car place is across La Reforma

A grand boulevard that slices across D. F. like a river

Driving away a few minutes later

There’s barely enough time to think

Oh my god, what the fuck have I gotten myself into

But before you can think this time

Up looms the traffic circle at the Angel

It’s like when you were a kid

And it was your turn on the rope swing

Or diving off the cliff or the bridge that proved your courage

So it’s a use the force moment

Surrendering to instinct

Calculating millimeters of space on all fronts at full speed

Hyperdriving into streets a dozen lanes across

In each direction

With road hazards like cobbled patches

To test your dental work

All manner of transportation

Buses, taxis and cars mixed up with carts and critters

Bicycles piled high with baskets

At stoplights the car is swarmed by grimy squeegee kids

People selling all manner of stuff

Including baby owls once

Or fire breathers exploding into wonderment

Then working the windows which roll down

Delivering crimped beneficence

Then a LeMans start with twenty cars racing

For a spot where only six will fit

Holding velocity into the maelstrom

Where magically we all redistribute at the last second

Like a flock of starlings

It isn’t that you ever relax

Driving in this city

But there are moments when it’s about as much fun as it gets

Flowing with a steel tumolt

And while I don’t want to align myself with Cortez

For a moment I conquered something on those streets

Piloting a rental car through mad chaos

Because I was able to understand the madness

Without needing to translate it

At speed

 

 

David Trudel   ©  2013