David A. Goodrum

Easter Sunday 1962

All the Chevy gauges broken
but Dad’s uncanny sense

of speed speeds us along.
His starched shirt pitted

the color of exhausted Lent.
Mom’s chapel hanky bobby pinned.

I drum on the back of her seat.
Eyes narrow in the rearview mirror

as Dad’s foot hovers over the brake.
No seatbelts to hold us down or back.

And the fixed gaze from the metal dash
– a magnetic resin Christ, arms outstretched.

All four windows cranked open.
Vent wings jutting out like elbows.

No need for heating. No AC to turn on.
From the backseat my older brother

tugs at his clip-on tie.
My hand out the window

dives and rises
curved like an airfoil.

David A. Goodrum (previously in Anacapa Review here) is the author of Abrupt Edges (Bass Clef Books, 2026), Vitals and Other Signs of Life (The Poetry Box, 2024) and Sparse Poetica (Audience Askew, 2023). Recent journal publications have appeared in The Orchards Poetry Journal (which awarded his poem “Winter Inquisition” a Pushcart Nomination), Cirque, and Triggerfish Critical Review, among others. His chapbook manuscript Half Undone was shortlisted in the 2026 Silent River Poetry Prize by River Paw Press. David lives in Corvallis, Oregon, and for the past two years was president of the Oregon Poetry Association. See more at www.davidgoodrum.com.