Voluntary surrender form

Debbie Benson

my brother’s car is cursed, i told the auto shop. don’t bother. it’ll be a cpl 
more weeks, the auto shop said/ &says every time they answer the phone
which they do mb 1-2 of 5-6 tries. that was july/ it’s feb2026, meanwhile 

she sits& shifts her buxom hips, puffs cold-breathd in the shop's garage,
coughs. last summer’s dimes freeze2 the insides of unused plastic holders.
my brother drove her mb only 2x, outlasted by this unkillable/ unfixable

vixen-ista, her crashed up parts 2novel 2b replaced. & so i said wd u pls
just give her a good shove then, let her orbit the earth w/all the othr space
junk. but she remains- so watch me go/ gathr my juices &clap thundrously

on2 their piddling counter USAA’s form 4repossession, 
the power of my hand dizzying, its unnecessary force splattering stars 
all around us like sizzling flecks
of buttr  -

take that ill say, as their eyes lower wordlessly 2their own calloused palms.
we accept it like chewed cud, things thatll never i mean never b repaired,
as a neighbor’s snow sweeps over the barn& beyond her designated yard

Debbie Benson has new poems forthcoming in Indiana Review, Bennington Review, and Passages North. Past awards include the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize, Vern Cowles Prize for a Trinity of Poems, an International Merit Award from Atlanta Review, inclusion in Best New Poets, and a Best of the Net nomination. She works as a clinical psychologist in NYC.