Lytton Smith

If You Could See the Motorists’ Gloves and Leathers!

Tonight, there’s a lot of fancy cars in the All-Purpose Magical
Tent. Fordcedes, Lamboursches. How they gleam. The sheen on
them’s been shun so shiny they would dazzle you, Leif Erikson, if
only you had eyes for it. This time been spent on buff and burnish
and what yield of decals you’d not believe. Some pass this way
rumouring electric windows and yes there’s skeptics and yes
there’s those who’ll have you unfond of such manipulation but
these are tonight the fancy cars—turn about the rows and ranks
with me, the while they’ve been here’s not lost their lustre, these
sedans, saloons, these limouscenes. Until the dandies come back
swagger and with girl they’re ours, we’re up to the inflated
headlamps in them. Yes, here and there of cracks, but did you see
such license ever, of plates yellow also? Why look to jolly along,
Francis Younghusband? There’s time for dawdle yet in the
marvellous tent, saving your umbrella for an afterwards
unfurling.


Lytton Smith
“If You Could See the Motorists’ Gloves and Leathers” first appeared in Monster Theory (Poetry Society of America, 2008); and is from The All-Purpose Magical Tent (Nightboat Books, 2009).