Evolution

My neighbor’s EV whines
without a motor’s whirr.
It does not shimmy or shake
as a gas engine might
coughing up a night’s
residue before it clears
the way my friend Dave
hacks up tar from the twenty
cigarettes he smoked the day before,
nor emit spumes of smoke
from settled oil heating on pistons
the way I picture my anger
at a solenoid switch
that won’t crank open.
I can barely hear the first motion
of the EV’s tire grain on the grit
of the street, mistake the low hum
for the dying yellowjackets in the oak.