The Adventures of Maggie And Me

Her name was Maggie, she was everything to me
She was a beautiful shiny fire-engine-red TD
Her custom number plate read MG • 933

Four on the floor with no synchro on first
Her muffler thrummed with a throaty-notey verse
She was all shiny duco and all polished chrome
A bit of a flirt but the sort you could take to your mother’s home

We had a fiery affair we were quite a couple
Maggie and me were inseparable
Outings & picnics in the wild countryside
Punting o’er the MacDonald River we would ride

At Uni parties we’d get stoned
Hanging out together & getting boned
She was a real bone-shaker
A terrific love maker

But she was quite terrible
And sometimes oh so unreliable …

Making-out in the car-park at old Camp Cove
I’d take out the steering wheel for the act of love
Which was all very fine when my partner was on the pill
And Maggie could roll-start in the dark down the hill

Maggie had a convertible hood
Frame and floor was made of wood
Her little windscreen wipers were quite the bane
They went slip slop slip slip slip in the rain

Bonnet was long and low and squarely rigged
Petrol tank had an old wooden dowel dip-stick
Her technology was old internal combustion
Sensibility was pure older-still steam engine

Driving with the windscreen down
We were quite a sight ‘round town
All hair and red beard blowing in the gale
My Sheep-dog Mac standing behind with his bob-tail

We were married in the summer of 72-73
I to her and she to me
She didn’t need to change her name
Morris Garages was her true mark & strain

Thirty years went by fast till a sad bad old day
So many more miles we still could have gone to play
She honked her horn to say see you later
I polished her octagon logo with my tears on her radiator

She drove off slowly into the sunset to a place far away
I’m sure I’ll hear her throaty laugh again … one day

January 2019