This is called "Machine Containing Johnson's Friends
Wrecked," and it's from the New York Times
talking about an auto race.
I'm so skilled with these machines,
I've got a patent on a wrench that's
only good for fixing flyers.
Moriarty knew he had no more chance
at keeping up with me in a race than a turtle has at catching
a Bakersfield jack rabbit.
Belle and the rest of the girls believed his fast talk
and piled into his auto like a congregation into a church.
I was in the lead from the start,
but I knew Moriarty was close because I could
hear the girls cheering him on.
I had my driving glasses on and I'm
seeing things the faster I go: a warm pail of water
on a porch in Galveston.
Thunderclouds over Ballarat, soft as the mattresses
at the Everleigh Club.
A canvas as clean as Saturday washing
except for the wet outline, a sweat angel on the spot where
Tommy Burns might have dropped if I'd let him fall.
I wipe the dirt from my glasses just
in time to see a rabbit hurrying across the road
and pulled hard on the brake.
That's when Moriarty tried to pass.
His wheels skidded on the gravel and his back axle snapped
like a rib.
I've wrecked many a machine and walked away whole,
but this one was different.
The wheels of his auto unhinged, and Moriarty's motor car
smashed into the back of mine.
I wasn't familiar with the girl sitting beside him,
but she flew past, past me, past the still hurrying jack rabbit,
past Tiny's water pail back home that couldn't
move even if it wanted to.