Brown and Orange Afghan

peterpThe battery is dead.

The key won’t turn.

We are stranded

in a dark tunnel.

We sit stunned by the lack of movement.

I go and reach in the trunk,

feeling for a flashlight

or flares, but find

a soft blanket.

Even without light,

I know it’s the brown and orange afghan,

once draped over your college couch,

with gaping holes made by fingers and toes –  

stretched and thinned by time.

We were young,  

your apartment was empty,

I held a lamp and you this blanket

walking down the steps into the future

or as far as your rusted Daytona would take us.

You threw the blanket in the trunk

and it smelled like lilacs, like her hair.

The old, worn blanket,

passed on  

from car to car,

with jumper cables

the Anti-freeze,

the empty oil containers.

The red Sentra,

The gray Escort,

The blue Saturn,

The tan mini-van,

but the afghan stayed, smelling

of everything we had been through.

You take the blanket,

red faced and silent  

because I didn’t check

the Farmers’ Almanac dates

designated car problems,

or because I ignored the battery light all week,

or I don’t have useful friends who work for a

tow company or could switch on the tunnel lights.

The night is chilly and we are

alone in the dark

without a working car and

forty minutes from being saved.

You wrap the blanket around the pain,

pull up your knees

turn your head to the window

close your eyes to the darkness.

I watch you,

smell the lilacs,

remember the night

I almost walked out into a different future –

the blanket wrapped you on the sagging couch

falling asleep, grimacing with cramps

and an accounting exam in the morning.

I open the door to get out

and the blanket wrestles

to fight off the chill.

I close it gently

thinking batteries die

in black tunnels with only

a black and orange afghan in the trunk. 

You can follow James Dugan on facebook and on Twitter @jamesduganlb. Purchase his new book through Amazon What Baseball Teaches: A Poetic Odyssey into 2008 Season of the World Champions Philadelphia Phillies 

Comments

[Nick Carraway]

Really warm imagery against a cold back drop. I read it a few times hoping you got out of the tunnel but not too quickly.

[James Dugan]

I don't know if the speaker leaves the car or not. I would just like to see your opinion and why?