this one road

it smells like
sour
cherries and
pomegranates and
opening my eyes
feels like
heavy
weather.
good;
it must be
summer
in these parts.

all over,
trees,
two beams of
light ahead.
it is
clearly
late
and that owl
stares,
its head
backwards;
upside-down
and hooting.

if I had the
fluidity
of real
limbs
perhaps I would
then chase him down.
I instead slog them
under and
past
the tree
and the hooting
owl.

out of the thicket,
I see
I am
several
yards
from headlights;
I take these moments
to imagine how
long
I had been
in there.

the car is old;
a middle-aged
Volvo
already
at the end of its
life.
inside it,
my girlfriend
is driving.
in the back,
I see
a skinhead
with whom
I must have
exchanged
drugs
for cash
in some
terse and
tired routine—
he is blue-
eyed and
just sits there.

when I get in
she hands
me her
gold
flask,
the smell of
whiskey
on her
breath
and elsewhere
howls
like a siren.

I say nothing,
only drinking
saying nothing.

I suck
down
the strange whiskey-
water, half
expecting her
to kill
off the feeling
and the
stooge
in the back.

she turns to me
and reaches
slowly
behind my ear
and locks the
door;
I am sure
that her eyes
are on
fire.

like always,
she throws it
into gear so
that I jerk around
in my seat
but
the music now
is abnormally legato—
too slow for this
late nightmare.

my eyes do not adjust
to the unfamiliar
blare
of sunrise;
it is slowly
washing
over acres
and acres of
grass and
this one
road.

I turn to
offer
the skinhead
another drink,
but he is
sprawled
out
on the seat
unmoving
in a cold-blue.

something told me
I was very
far
from those southern
palisade beaches.