Drive, he said. Want to go for a drive?
That fat girl's watching me, my
every move. My hips he said were like traffic lights.
Turning red red red. I wanted a light.
I crossed over to his
side. Try this bread.
Soft but rising.
The air makes him concentrate
on me, like I am a bowl and him
all fixed, all full and blind as yeast.
2.
Inviting blue out the car window. Nice enough
for a trespass into it
as if we were skating and sinking
against a bruise. He is skinny and hollow
like a kitchen knife stark against wood
and day-old cake. Moon spills out
over whatever we cross: water, gutter, pleasure.
This girl's no loaf of bread sliced
and empty. This girl's going to drive.
3.
You're a car door, little girl.
Place on his jeans kneaded clear through. Skin's
the color of dirt on a hot day, clear up to the wrist.
Tell a man's truth by his wrist, and a woman's
by her small finger.
I've got mine bent backwards,
is what it's at.
It's lonely to drive with him.
4.
A girl makes him quiet, he tries romantic.
The night moon tries itself again
in a knot, or stretches to the shape of a baby's fingernail
or a crescent roll on a table.
She's round as bread dough, his former driver.
She's rolling out her shorts
like she's rising. That fat girl keeps following me.
I'll stop that like a traffic light.
He couldn't find his way out from her car.
She'd drive all over the road.
5.
He means to start me. Light my haunches
like a cigarette. Make my table full of night planets,
finish up the dishes in the white evening water.
I tell him you're gonna melt like sweet rolls
on my warm tongue. We'll get this car
moving out over the road's open legs.
We'll run it out past what you know.
Didn't stop for the traffic light. Just drive, he said.
