Poetry & Portraits: Rival

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Rival
By Eric Meub

Why must my solitude expire so soon?
Right through the velvet sleeve of afternoon,
Through flourishes of leaves, the tires arrive
To sweep across the asphalt of the drive
His great sedan, parading vintage gleams
Of glass in facets, chrome and glossy creams
That lift, in one discriminating stroke,
The dappled shadow-fabric of the oak.
At last, the circumnavigated arc
Discerns a tangent, drifts, and deigns to park.
The squirrels and scrub jays freeze upon the limb:
Creation waits to catch a sight of him.

The driver’s door unclicks; the god is seen! –
A lesser deity than his machine,
A disappointment – yes, this sounds unkind –
When German engineering’s left behind:
Unpolished, nothing glittering to say.
I much prefer him when we drive away.
One might have calibrated this before,
But now I have to greet him at the door
With something like a kiss. May I be blunt?
I envy his Mercedes parked in front.
It whirs and taps in satisfied repose:
Why bother, really, where the driver goes?

Copyright © 2019 by Susan C. Price & Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena, the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line.