Say Volvo, say gearshift and straddle, say
we rubbed to plums our chafing rash for days
after parking at the rest stops of Tulia,
of highway fuzz and drizzling windows, drool you
spilt, drools you didn’t; say Nirvana, Kurt
Cobain, our pissed-off crooner, say your skirt
just wouldn’t cover; say shy, say one finger
hooked in a Levi’s waistband, hipbones, bringer
of tented boxers; say Strawberry Hill,
Boone’s, George’s Liquor Shack, hot, purple spills
where Mad Dog 20/20 couldn’t wait
any longer and leapt to where the straight
canyons of our opened throats closed; say Mars,
God of the yellowed hickie marks,
say proof for locker room philosophers,
midnights spent inside a rearview mirror
to hide our acne caves in infinite
digressions; say lace bras so intricate
that even now I wake up thumbing over
my pillow, hoping I can somehow cover
my lack of deftness with a greasy kiss,
a small of the back massage, the steady hiss
of friction, denim gloved and burning wires
inside pale skin we took for granted; say fire,
and mean you smoke sometimes in the back of cars,
scratching holes into your jeans with a choir
of fingernails, ignoring their entropic scars.