she releases the handbrake and
asks, where are we going
but she already knows the answer -
it does not matter.
for you cannot ask google maps the way to the ocean
and you can never be lost when you are navigating by the moon.
i slide a mixtape into her 2003 honda cassette player
as we whir down the highway.
she starts singing, full-throated, to a song she has never heard.
no, they are singing her song badly
but she does not mind,
will show them how it goes.
when we get to the beach she pulls out a bottle of red and
an old book of mine,
one i'll never read again, pristine,
she breaks the spine,
writes in the margins
love notes transported through space and time
to a boy who would never see them
would grow up instead to preserve all these books
like an old man, buffing his 1958 electric blue cadillac eldorado
that he never drives.
day turns into moonless night and
she takes my uncertain hand,
walks us to the shore,
placing my feet as if prepared to sidestep
a shard of broken glass
or a jellyfish.
it is so dark, i do not know what is sand, sea or sky
but you know the way, being pulled by gravity.
you are tipsy so i let you sleep on the way back,
my dreamy copilot by my side.
i plot a course home
through the black rolling hills and doug firs.
i am notified of the moon, full beam,
pinging me from just over the horizon,
bringing this landscape into spectacular silhouette.
i smile and turn the computer off.