October 13, 2022
Elapsed Time, or How a Drag Racer Lives or Die
by Christian Anton Gerard
The empty by the pedal’s the one that got me
going like a wolf post-equinox.
Torque’s one force. Blood’s another.
Vogue dishevelment’s the company I keep.
Black coffee. Cowboy killers.
I'm nothing without a chase.
I don't want no one to know
I got a sheriff in my chest. What's the point
figuring what dreams mean
when there’s twelve rounds or a quarter mile?
These bones ain’t built for distance.
Heart bored out thirty-over. Full-race cam.
Torque’s one force. Breath’s another.
Can't outrun my heart, its trunk full of moonshine.
Some days I eat and some days I got to win to eat.
Won’t have nothing fat in this life. Ain’t a choice.
Bullet holes ain't nothing but holes.
Call them air conditioning.
Let’s run, I say, county line cross state line cross—
Next week, you say, Rent’s due.
My life’s got no dotted yellow.
Clock on the wall’s no friend of mine.
Only two lines matter anyhow.
Pain’s its own flipside.
Everything in me’s running except at the line where
I can almost be still standing on the gas and the clutch
waiting for the flags, like the always-other-shoe, to fall.