It’s eerie seeing the flashes of faded blue
viewed through a stand of beech.
A twenty-minute hike from the parking lot
through vegetation thick enough
that you’d believe it’s been there since Eden,

but stories survive of an open field
where teens raced, cars swerving and bumping
and then abandoned where they died,
left behind to bewilder us.

Mice and other vermin use it for a home,
or for parts to take elsewhere, upholstery
ripped and removed to insulate a nearby nest.

A sugar maple claims the steering wheel,
emerging through the rust-edged gap,
more hole than floor board.

Tires no longer visible, it’s hard to say if 
the car emerges from or sinks
into the earth.

Flakes of rust spread everywhere; doors, hood,
everything breaking down,
though recognizable parts survive;
belts long gone, the engine fan rests,
ready for another spin.