William Notter, from "Detroit Iron"
Rust is eating everything here
where the smooth steel of dreams began.
Even the blue mailbox on the corner
blisters under clouds and salt-slush.
The auto business might be kept afloat
by Big Oil and planned obsolescence,
but it could just as well be salt
that pulls the buyers back, that works itself
into every chip and crevice, the seed of rust.
Everything our cars might mean is dissolving
from the inside as we aim them down the road.