Our road trip memories align
as we pass a Farmall tractor,
fire engine red and rooted
roadside in a field of alfalfa,
a relic washed by cloudburst,
a workhorse dried in sunshine,
arrested air stack,
rusted crank case,
supple spider webs
in chaste wheel wells—
immutable old machine
somehow extinguishing
in the reflected acreage
of the rear view mirror.