Suburban Myth #12
Sam Schmidt
It comes to you in a dream—
A voice says, Build
a cement driveway. Make it
so many cubits long,
so many wide, using grade A,
silicon-based gravel…
Even though
you have no car, and no
garage to speak of. And—
you have no house. But,
if you build a driveway,
a road may want to swing by.
One morning, a new car
sits there gleaming.
You spend
many happy hours, turning
into the driveway and pulling
out, turning in and pulling out…
And when it rains, you lie back
watching the drops
on the streetlight-whitened windshield
dancing like mad to a music
you can’t hear. You dream
of a house-seed below the ground
that the seeping
water will finally
touch: all the rooms of the house
curled up in the bitter
casing of the seed, and a wife
and children asleep.
A voice says, Build
a cement driveway. Make it
so many cubits long,
so many wide, using grade A,
silicon-based gravel…
Even though
you have no car, and no
garage to speak of. And—
you have no house. But,
if you build a driveway,
a road may want to swing by.
One morning, a new car
sits there gleaming.
You spend
many happy hours, turning
into the driveway and pulling
out, turning in and pulling out…
And when it rains, you lie back
watching the drops
on the streetlight-whitened windshield
dancing like mad to a music
you can’t hear. You dream
of a house-seed below the ground
that the seeping
water will finally
touch: all the rooms of the house
curled up in the bitter
casing of the seed, and a wife
and children asleep.