1
Gray bondo 442 rushing
windows down, tiny
twisters rustling notebooks, loose paper swirling
flying at us like messages we can’t understand,
baptized by the sweet and sour always smell of
honeysuckle and smokestacks, always on the breeze,
our second skin someday shed.
2
A tidy brick ranch with
sagging gutters and cracked roof tiles–
well-lit
well past curfew,
a single chainsmoker
behind sagging mini-blinds
watches the street, the bloated figure
striped and segmented, rings on
a scarred, split tree.
3
Slender, glistening cheesecake thighs
stick to black vinyl. She
crushes into my shoulder
at fifty-seven miles per hour,
like I’m a magnet that will keep her
from flying out the window at any speed.
4
Who knows the lost glory of bench seat handjobs
on an open road
at night?
5
Van Halen “Eruption” live,
always live while
glass packs add crazy percussive bass.
I listen. I marvel.
We see each other more clearly than we see ourselves.
6
One sweaty hand high up her thigh,
one on that silver skull, that suicide knob slick with sweat,
fingering both as it were the first time and last time looking
everything and nothing right in the eye.
###
