Ingloriously junked, not even worth
the effort it would take to salvage them
as scrap, a million miles or more of short
commutes to work and summer odysseys
to tourist-friendly shores behind them, ten
or twelve dismembered hulks lie still within
the grip of weeds and weather, monument
to highway maps, the last unburied dead.

An eyesore to the neighborhood, a shred
of local Rust Belt deemed a legacy
a father visited upon his sons,
rededicated to the semen-stained
upholstery in back seats where DNA
evaporated many years ago,
they stand a silent vigil to this day
in honor of a fuming lineage.

To talk of towing them would be an insult,
just as it would have been when Daddy first
decided to commemorate the family
history by going public: auto-da-fe,
twenty-four/seven, fifty-two/forever.
His legal heirs, we comb our hair and grit
our teeth, remind the neighbors who we are,
and dwell beside the icons of decay.