Switching Cars Poem by gershon hepner

I cannot, nor do I intend,
to switch my wife, but I’ll pretend
next time I’m driving in my Honda
to drive a new Pagani Zonda.
My wife was built so long ago
we’ve both forgotten when, although
it is recorded somewhere. Wine,
like cheese with which I like to dine,
like her, improves with age,
but cars do not in the garage––
apologies for that weird rhyme,
weird rhyming surely is no crime––
and there have barely been a hundred
which on the road with speed have thundered
since 1999, good year
for cars––too soon for wine, I fear,
and wives, of course––you’d have to wait
with patience for a later date,
at least ten years for one of those,
and drive her in without her clothes.
Sports cars for men can be great fun
when speeding faster than a ton
in bodies that give men a hard on,
like models fit for superstardom.
but I’ll stick to my Honda, just
as I’ll stick to my wife. Car lust
and dreams of passengers who’re Tens
are fantasies, and there it ends,
because when I am at the wheel
I’ll stick to somebody who’s real,
my wife, of whom I really fonder
than any new Pagani Zonda.
You’ve read my fantasy, the rest
is silence in Pacific west,
which doesn’t seriously hinder
my poems about cars and Linda.


In an advertising supplement to the LA Times today Paul Rogers describes the Pagani Zonda F, which is priced at $700,000. Only about a hundred have been made since 1999, and its performance challenges Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini, with stunningly effective arodynamics. Buying one, says Paul Rogers, is like getting in on the ground floor with Ferrari.

7/16/08