Epic

Don’t be seduced by admiration
Into giving in to ambition—
You’ll end like the guys who worked on cars

In your neighborhood, including friends,
Who invariably filled up their yards
With impossible works in progress,

The Caddy or the Jag up on blocks,
Engines forever being rebuilt.
What they really admired was the beast

As it had left the factory floor,
Gleaming, elegant, and beyond them.
Now they dreamed of wild restorations,

The Caddy as hot-rod enveloped
In painted flames, faster, more awesome
Than ever, a machine transcendent

Over factory original,
But they’d been infected by their love
Of industrial art no backyard

Mechanic could actually have built,
And, gifted as they were with engines,
They never finished their dream mobiles.