From my car’s backseat
you dip a cigarette
into the night’s pool
ash flakes away like skin
the way people tiptoe into dust
in corner cracks.
Someday we’ll all leave each other
and I’ll never know
what your eyes are trailing –
Some deep forested mirage
leading a path away
from these soldiering lights.
We’re the only car in the lot,
the radio blasts bluebirds.
Your eyes open into opals.
Your body leans, bends against the window
as if you’d follow your own smoke.
Between songs, I hear our lungs.
You don’t know I’m watching you,
that you have a mind
I’d take a hammer to –
tap, invite open –
a robin’s egg.
I hold your face
to my light’s eye,
a translucent shell
the tidal pulse
rolling in and out with air
I see each breath’s silhouette
Your blood is gold filament
your green glow
your blue-green glow
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