FOLSOM STREET BLUES
by Jim Stewart
Mercedes Headed North on 101
Somewhere between Petaluma
and Santa Rosa
I spotted you heading north
Classic station wagon
an estate car with
original roof rack
filled with brown leather trunks
fastened by brass buckled straps
The faded racing-green finish said
you were not restored
but kept in shape
Your driver
well into his sixties
held his liver-spotted hands
firmly at ten and two
while looking straight ahead
he kept you at 55
long before cruise control
Were you purchased decades ago
in a West German postwar deal
complete with factory tour
or at some long-closed foreign
dealership’s polished showroom
on north Van Ness
Is your driver an emeritus professor
in ancient arcane languages
taught at Berkley or
a retired banker from the City
headed for weekend pleasures
at the Russian River