The Truth About Cars

i've always thought most cars are left as eggs by garbage trucks
out in the boonies
beyond rats
beyond city dumps
and far enough from people that no one will notice them
and when they hatch they're little things
like multicolored roaches
only meaner
that run all over fields and shear down crops
sythesizing the juice into gasoline
until they're big enough for highways
and their gasoline glands are gone
then they all crawl off to the city
and gang up in the streets like herds of dragon armadillos
meditate in masses behind traffic lights
and swarm in hordes once the lights have changed
frustrating     the few city people
not pure drivers under the carapace

most people here
think most cars are kept
in individual homes in the suburbs
that's not true:
once their teem down city streets is done
they shrink
smaller than when they were hatched
and creep inside your head
like words from advertisements
that continue
their motorized mumble
until you buy yourself a car
that can join them

from Thebes (1991)