the old black beamer

Sticking to the cracked beige leather seats,
faded like a desert landscape in the backseat of my
father’s old black BMW.
I remember the music,
Talking Heads and the Beatles,
his speakers buzzed and snapped like angry hornets.
I never told him that I had spilled
my cranberry juice into them one afternoon,
sticky redness slipping deep into the sound.
He taught us songs from “My Fair Lady”
and “the Sound of Music”
patiently, line by line,
a chorus of three, my little brother
next to me. We sang Christmas carols
too, loudly and off tune as soon
as the cold began to chew on our noses,
our exposed fingers and delicate ears.
His faded turquoise tennis bag lay
at my feet, canisters of neon balls
like exotic candies, fascinating.
When he drove to pick us up from preschool
we hid from the car,
shrieking with delight when he was
consistently unable to find us.
One afternoon I ran too far, I could hear
his anger, the roar of the engine.
Walking home that day, I watched
the Beamer reduced to dust ahead of me.