C. Fay Barter-Colcord
In the basement of the split-level
home, my uncle kept a shrine
to racecars marked with number 8—
looping infinitely
on diecast chrome behind glass.
Racing—too-fast cars
blurring together
on an endless track
and a father’s famously fatal
Daytona crash.
Twelve years later
my grandfather eulogized him,
his only son—a too-fast truck having
struck a tree—
“Parents shouldn’t bury
their children.”
He spoke steadily about his son
growing up
playing with Tonka trucks in sandboxes, then
growing up
to fix road
with excavators.
Twelve years later
I was supposed to speak
at a funeral—the too-fast cancer—my
only grandfather—
but illness—
chronic,
quieting.
Hundres of miles down
the interstate—on a floor strewn with
Tonka trucks—
my son speeds past—plastic bulldozer,
repairing
what’s been broken.
‡‡
C. FAY BARTER-COLCORD is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Princeton University, specializing in medieval Christian mysticism and women’s spirituality. Her poetry engages with themes of trauma, chronic illness, grief, and the divine. Her work is forthcoming in Pink Panther Magazine.
