’68 International
My first memory of riding
in anything with wheels
is of sitting between my daddy
wearing a work-worn pocket tee
maneuvering the stick shift
I am to keep my tiny feet away from
and my twin sister
who is equally enthralled as I am
at the gravel road passing beneath us
visible through the rusted out hole in the floor board
of our 1968 International pickup
the color red faded
now almost to orange
as my husband pulls it from the treeline
where it slept for some decades
while my son
small enough to stand straight in the rim of a tractor’s wheel
looks on
and the great metal beast is hauled 100 miles north
shaking startled mice from its bowels upon parking
where it sits once more
waiting for the funds to mend
so I may be that little girl
safely riding beside the man I adore.
Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold
7–24–11
