Saturday night at the races

Sunburned necks and shoulders
sprout from dayglo tee shirts emblazoned
with favorite numbers and angry race cars
roaring through swirls of colorful geometry.

Whiskered styles locked in the sixties

on guys who drive trucks or build houses

with their wives or girlfriends oozing out of

tank tops and jeans, dangly earrings.

A lot of guts hanging over belts, with

sixteen ounce beers in each hand.

Bud junior or sis balance a box

of jalapeno-covered, velveeta-draped nachos,

floppy burgers, and wax cups of Coca cola.

It's carnival of excess: horsepower, bulging bellies,

and big-ass engines. Big colors, big heat and

flag-flapping tongues. Cleavage and leather

and the shattering noise of racing engines.

It's the smell of grilled hamburger smoke 

and sunblock on sun-grilled skin,

cheap perfume and exhaust fumes.

Popcorn and spilled beer.

A tinny anthem from out-of-sync speakers

has everyone standing solemnly after the announcer

mouths some platitudes about far away troops 

and some legendary driver or team owner

who's now dead, this event is a memorial to him.

Then it's time for what we came for,

to see the snarling bright-painted monsters

sliding around the hard-packed clay oval

at a hundred and twenty miles per hour.

A delicate thing, controlling a beast,

finding a balance on the edge between

fast and upside down. One that gets crossed

a few times. And everyone stands,

peering the wreck until the driver

 climbs out and waves his hand.

Then there's a cheer and a shaking of heads

and an exodus to the beer and concession stands.

It'll take a few minutes to clear up the mess,

get it all sorted, restarted. Might be good time

to go take a piss, have a smoke or buy a souvenir.

Swap stories about that time when Jimmy so and so

flipped or when Steve the crazy one went over the wall.

It's always the same, the drama. Cars fly down the track.

Little kids climb and play under the grandstand

and the teenagers troll the aisles and the stairs

to see and be seen; it's not all about cars to them.

Or to me. It’s the sweat-stained hats embroidered

with flames. The warm summer nights and the smells.

The parade of unselfconscious flesh, the illusion of

a simpler life, where a Saturday night at the track

seems to provide all the satisfaction, the vicarious

thrill, the circus of noise, with heroes and villains

all played out in four hour doses of speed.

Then it's time to drive home under the stars

just as alone as I was when I got there, tired and

red-eyed, with track dust in my hair, as baffled as ever by life.

I bet all of the rest of them are too, because no one's

that simple, it just feels like that at the races.