David W. Landum

Discontinuation

I can remember days my father drove
a Cord, a Willies, and a Rambler — all
now discontinued and part of the trove
of models lost and gone; that met their fall:

Pierce-Arrow, Cord and Auburn, DeSoto,
Hudson, Packard—gone away, defunct,
models that people nowadays do not know;
have never heard of; most of them long junked,

seen only in museums. I recall
the Hudson that my father owned. Going
out in it—father, brother, sister, all
of us—to drive a short distance and bring 

a greeting to my mother, who worked nights;
worked at a “drive-in restaurant” where you
pulled up and parked; sat underneath the lights
beneath an awning. Soon one of the crew

of “car hops” came to take your order and
you got your food, delivered on a tray
that clipped on to your car window. The band
of cooks inside would make it. An array

of food hooked to your vehicle. You ate
sitting there, in the car. A jukebox played
and you felt cozy; the dinner to sate
your appetite, the entrees there, displayed

on the driver-side window. I would feel
smug and secure. I sat there in the car
there in the back seat and knew the appeal
of uniqueness, the intimacy of

my brother, sister, father there with me;
my mother, not that far off, there inside
the restaurant, the “drive-in.”  What would be
a feature of that era—set aside

today, practiced no more; a relic, thing
long gone, that only memory can bring.

David W. Landum’s poetry has appeared widely. He has published poems in numerous journals and magazines, including The Literary Hatchet, The Road Not Taken, Poetry, Autumn Sky … many others (including Pulsebeat). He has published two volumes of poems, Tawney Grammar (Barefoot Muse Press) and The Impossibility of Epithalamia (White Violet Press).