It's Still Life

“Honey is the only food that doesn’t spoil” — anon

Cars rattle, and that could move
my dad to break into a howling burst,
an echoing drawl of purpled complaint.
And my sister and I, we’re split apart
by pillows and sleeping bags because
we encroach on each other like a red tide,
and we’re to search the car from pillars
and posts, and greased nuts and bolts,
and carpeted covers and chrome handles,
and tent poles, and pots and pans,
and rubber mats near rear-wheel wells,
searching noise of lost mechanical speech.
And while Mum grew pale over
the direction of maps, we were
enslaved to a lesser distress,
to make Dad’s car, still and quiet
as creeping moss.

written for Sunday Whirl. This week’s words are: food, cover, lost, howling, rear, draw, move, break, less, split, maps, still