Vanitas - edit3

[dukealien]

edit2;

Nine Airflow-era cars lie all aligned
long V-8 noses aimed toward a road
they ride no more.  Fender to fender
running-board to running-board they rest
round, round in ways that seem
no longer streamlined
yet they are.

Warm chestnut brown so uniform and smooth
how could it just be rust, no elements
would be so kind?  They show no glint of chrome
but as traffic passes all their glass
remaining – splinters, panels, triangles -
sun-sparkles with reflected radiance
from this final monument.

Down their facing road a sapphire Beamer
gleaming liquid luxury slides by
dismissively, far too superior
to be concerned with brown old roadside wrecks.
But of its cool quartz headlights only one
is lit.

---

Thanks to @Knot for the good critique.  Spoilers below on why I left what I did.

The cars are lined up side by side, very close (maybe touching).  An Airflow car has large, bulbous, streamlined fenders which stick out as far as the running boards which connect them, so both fenders and running boards could be in contact, or at least adjacent.  I don't see much way to make this apparent without detailing what I mean by Airflow in many words, so the whole concept would have to go.  Which is, of course, an option.

And, without being defensive, the point about the one headlight working on the Beamer is missable.  Without editorializing or summarizing (got away from that at the end of what's now S2, I hope), the point is that the Beamer's vainly pleased with its perfection, not realizing that decay and age have already given it, as it were, a squint.   If that's not getting across, it needs to be better expressed, but how?

And there's a lot of alliteration which may look like/be padding.  At least the repetition is mostly gone   .