Elegy for the Age of Oil
                        Junkyard, Soddy Daisy, Tennessee

You old jalopies,
Hot rods, pickup trucks—
No more
Dinosaur juice for you.
No more that rich, intoxicating brew
Of club moss, ferns, huge joints
Of brontosaurus meat
With pterodactyl bones
Thrown in for flavor.
No more firewater.
Some of you
Were kindly drunks, no doubt,
Purring like kittens.
Some, when tanked up, roared
Like your ancestral dragons, fumed,
Bellowed black smoke, and belched
Pipeloads of half-digested gas.
Alas, no more.
No more
Tyrannosaurus.
Only
Wrecks.

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Copyright © 2019 Dan Veach All rights reserved
from Lunchboxes
Iris Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission