Orange Lady

Inspired by reading Syndra Lynns’ Orange Glow
whilst giving the Orange Lady a makeover prior to a show.


Oh Allis B Allis B, you’re the best of Allis C’s mighty children,
though well past sixty now you’re still my girl.
I’m intimately well acquainted with your body orange painted,
twenty horsepower, big behind and just a ton.

I pull your crank quite slowly,
turn you over, fire you up.
Protest, misfire, splutter, your engine starts to stutter
and then begins to putter into life.

Your fixed position throttle at nine hundred RPM,
we throb gently in parade around the ground.
I sit behind, astride you, with love and pride I guide you,
adulation, gasps of wonder from the crowd.

Women at the show ignore you, know they’re beaten, can’t compete
with a lady who has seen them off before.
But their menfolk touch you, wistful, with a longing quiet and wishful
and jealous in their reverential awe.



Allis Chalmers Model B 1942.