I got this car to get out of the rain, he sang,
but it's under the skin, and those aloe eyes of yours
wash me back into a violent flood.

In the Indian summer mud, off highway five
she jerked harder than she ever had.
Routine approval, without hesitation,
as a drone with an unsavory function.

Somebody is coming to steal me, she said.
To take away my dirty blood and put in their own.
Just a dream I had, she whispered,
Soaking up his smirk, two final sips of his gin.
Heavy fingers tapping ashes on his belly,
burned in the orchards.

The olive in her skirt patching up the bruise marks.

Is one leg longer than the other, she asked as the door slammed.
I noticed a limp when you got out to piss.
No ma'am, just a stone stuck in between my toes.
Been there since I was a kid.

Her giggle took them single file
to the broken fences of a New England farm
gracing the clinic wall.

Their laughter was a bark at the holiday traveler.
Salivating on the leather anterior.

In the morning, you'll come this way again?
That virtuous plea she'd pull, from any sweaty
trucker's hat.
She was the sole spring in the curbside mattress,
the greasiest breakfast.

She had the same itch.
The one you get when you're born spitting grass and
raking snuff.
Dreaming of horses.
She was an animal made of the same color paper.
Convincing him that nights like those
are like paste on a sunburn.

Without upsetting his darting eyelids,
she leaned over, pulled the lever
and layed his seat back.

In the mirror, a warm and hungry road
tilted its head back, and spat a moon
at her milky white core.

08/16/2005

Posted on 08/16/2005
Copyright © 2024 Kimberly Rhode