Collide/Abandon (Drive)

Collision was inevitable
green-gold eyes
full of sidewalks
and speak-easys,
like some post-punk Dorothy Parker
met-cute with a ’70s Woody Allen
back before we despised him

Pulling me closer without moving
faint echoes of laughter
breaking barrier walls
of yes, no
I’m not sure

You imprinted on me
handwritten words
from ink-stained fingers
reading chapters aloud,
lover-lies and lines.
and I listened,
through shuttering skin and lashes
open/close/open

waiting for our bodies to bend

We never spoke out loud
just whispers
lying near-motionless
holding a side-by-side distance
folding desire into a threadbare blanket
as your hands spun around,
circling
casting shadows

I wanted it
each hollow piece
every murmured secret
our final escape

I drove us into the middle of a Sunday night
right towards some hurricane’s warning
I think the newsman called her Rita

You on the passenger side
chain-smoking
putting each one out on the dash
as the rain smacked the spider-webbed windscreen
letting the weather in

I hit the gas

…

It’s 4am now
at the Garden of Gas
just this side-of-the-road

Its midnight now
at the Garden of Gas
just this side-of-the-road

I’m on my knees
dirty bathroom floor beneath me
my arms splaying out like a cross
if they call someone
will they fix me?

I left her there
in rainbow socks
in my memory
by the two-for-a-dollar chocolate bars

“Run like hell,”
you sang
never say sorry,
never look back

“Everything Is Free” by Gillian Welch
from the album, Time (The Relevator) (2001)