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STEVEN TREBELLAS

Coast

Cut the motor and coast,
let the mountain be the motor.
let there be only wind and hiss
of tires on corners, and
let it be like this
for the full five miles to market.

Tell the joke, father:
a brake job on the way down
a clutch job on the way up.
Where was it? You and your co-pilot gone..
My sister says Pennsylvania,
a low brown house-there were many trees

And pure gravity that pulled us down
to women in hook-button dresses
who sold fresh baked bread.

The smell filled our Dodge, lifting us,
through ghost clouds, and pine
engine laboring; we never argued then,
the four of us

in synch, of one accord, reconciled
by the smell of bread
as we climbed to Heaven—
cresting the mountain ridge
toward home.



Steven Trebellas was born in 1952 to a corporate gypsy father and Spanish teacher mother. She Greek, he Celt. Fell out of the Church and into beat poetry, later studied with Allen Ginsberg at Naropa before it was accredited and when a course with A.G. cost 84 bucks. Spent some years participating in street poetics in Denver and elsewhere. Eventually got an MFA after careers in mechanics and sales. Currently out of work and living in a former gas station in Burlington, Iowa. Focusing on publication and may do a PhD somewhere. (radioflyer@lisco.com)



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