To Cindy

Somehow you were old, at 17.
I knew that you were dying,
and wouldn't last the summer,
but I took you home with me,
my college past, my life beginning
just as yours began its close.
Those ninety miles meant frequent stops to rest,
your coughing more severe,
and I could only hope my deep concern
would help sustain you on the way.

Two months more, I clung to you
and you to me through every day—
to hospital with my sister,
to my church to pray.

I know not where they buried you
or if they knew your fame—
or of the musicmen you served
and took from them your name.

I only know you were my first
and in your final days
my very own, my Cinderella
'35 most mortal Chevrolet!
~

The poem is true. My first car (a piece of junk but
it still ran...barely) after college (and it was my sister who she carried to the emergency room after a home accident) had been owned over time by both the concertmaster and the principal flutist of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. I bought her from the latter gentleman for $50.00.