ANTIQUE‑CAR SHOW, COLUMBIA CENTER

By June Frankland Baker

Searching for One‑Hour Photo,

I scarcely saw them

parked down the center of the mall,

reflecting what passed in their high gloss.

All the way to Jeans West, Tape Town,

before I stopped—companion

Chevy Bel Airs, his and hers,

1953. I was just starting college.

The cars were arranged by year.

I walked back. Rumble‑seat roadsters—

Packard, Hudson,

a blue air‑cooled ’29 Franklin,

upright against its side

a yellow‑spoked spare with strapped‑on mirror

to show where you’d been.

Dad in my album, now young,

courts my mother.

Back still.

Model A’s.

Shining black hold

of a Model T, isinglass curtain buttoned

close against snow.

Mother commutes

to high school from the farm.

To the first car.

Then, beyond the photo shop, stretching

to the end of the mall, nothing

but air or a waiting access

you could enter like a door, going back

before the beginning.

First published in Kansas Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4, 1989. Copyright © June Frankland Baker.