The Drive Home
Sonya Lara
Before I am labeled unfair and wanting,
we uncoil the curves of the pink-crested mountains,
the red of his Acura like a match head snaking
its way to flame. The clutch constellates
between gears, his right hand writing letters
I cannot trace into meaning. He smiles bright
and knowing, my breath caught in opposing
numbers––our miniscule 60 like an afternoon
sun threatening to wane, the large 25 like a palm
to a face. Do you trust me? He replies only to himself
as I watch the blur of the forest unfold like a spilling.
We will not wrap our bodies around metal guardrails
like exchanged rings. There is danger in the entombment
of spheres, in the promise of more. I am not meant
to keep his whispered in another life, you’d be the woman I’d marry.
Because he is a boy, he will only cry behind closed doors
and speak of love not worth remembering. Because I was
willing, he empties my hands of what I’d choose to carry.
I would never hurt you, he repeats, heat in the confidence
of his control as he screams himself alive on the winding road.
We are in the belly of the beast, him and I, patient as eggs.
Soon, we’ll crack the mantle of this home, and speed down
familiar roads, the height of his voice mountaining behind us,
like a god singing his own prayer.
