Car Wash

I sat on a rickety chair in the car
Wash waiting area with two local cops
A studenty looking young woman on her smart
Phone and someone my age with a Havanese

Puppy on her lap. The sun was just burning
Off the haze and the Jettas and Camrys gleamed
As the guys from Salvador and Honduras
Vacuumed the floor mats and hand dried the windshields.

My old Subaru came dripping round the corner
Seeming I thought a bit shy to be caught wet
In public. Would they start on the Mercedes

First? My heart sank a bit but democracy
Prevailed as the two teams started together.
Mind chat respite: all things shall be well again.










David Shaddock’s poems have won the Ruah Magazine Power of Poetry Award and the International Peace Poem Prize, among other honors. His poems have appeared in Tikkun, Mother Jones, and elsewhere. His books include Vernal Pool, In This Place Where Something’s Missing Lives, and Dreams Are Another Set of Muscles. He holds a PhD in psychoanalytic research, and he maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Oakland and lives with his family in Berkeley.