"Why this truck though, Lili?"
Sunny asks as he kicks
Road Rage in the tire,
and hops over the Desert
horizon, "It does not
resemble you."
"That's the point, Sunny.
People leave me alone,
because they expect the owner
of Road Rage to be male
bodied, or they assume
there is a dude close by. But
my girl, is more like Rainbow
Crow: Queer, and curious,
and flying solo. She is
big enough for Desert dwelling,
and small enough for City streets.
Chameleon that she is,
she rides the Worlds between."
"So it's like camouflage,"
Sunny says.
"It is a most accurate representation,
of the current size and style
of my hermit crab shell,"
Lilith pets the toxic waste
emblem on the truck's flanks,
decorated by the Marine
vet who owned her first.
She recites the Sun
a poem, about her
beLoved, Road Rage...
"RAINBOW CROW
People smile when they see a waif
of an AFAB, hop out of a majestic
clunker, like Road Rage.
They think, "This doesn't add up,"
but this is only because
they do not know me.
“What an adorable oxymoron,”
they think at me. I let them
have this fantasy. These days,
Road Rage is angry
so I do not have to be.
I let her channel the poison
fuel into the tread of our tires,
circulating on the asphalt roads
of this disaster we currently call
humanity. There is more for her
and me, and for you. Can’t you
feel it? Have you tried to?
Road Rage is like the Rainbow
Crow; All black and grey,
and dusty on the outside.
The voice of her engine, gone
grumbly with use, but within
she bursts with color. She is
of things made in Love, and laid
to rest, but not forgotten; Full
of tools I am not quite
sure yet, how to use again,
or if I want to; Filled with scraps
of fabric, like pieces of old prayers
not yet woven into new paragraphs.
She burns, like Rainbow Crow,
bringing Fire back to Earth
to keep my creature warm,
and wearing herself out
in the process. She will die,
eventually, like all things, but
I do not trouble mySelves right Now,
with that part of her Story.
Instead, I let mySelves be sheltered
by her. She is the colorful cave I enter
with the Night, and no Matter how I fall
asleep, I wake up in the Rainbow."
Planetary Signatures 