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700 Miles |
700 miles & 3 bottles of good wine
My hand on the wheel & the other in your lap, back then forth
Warm like a smile waking up next to you naked in the morning
And this 642 miles left to drive, just me & you & this road
These promises & faraway stars with pictures held up in the sky
Bigger than us, than these clothes-close dreams
Mile marker 524 leaving in-between us distance, bottle hanging in your hand like a painting
Moonlight eyes & a jaw cut to portrait but the window outside to the rolling desert
Makes me see drops of red wine bleeding off your lip & falling down
Reminding me of the way you taste so I pull over to the side of the road
405 miles turn the lights off, turn the car off & sit in the big sky darkness
Kiss you like the last lips we have should be for each other
Last hot kiss, last night light & pulling closer just to breathe
And that roadsign yellow light in the distance, on/off as the trees swing
In a breeze that rolls out over the fields tall golden
Shakes the leaves, makes them fall, makes branches bend
Stuck in this never-over kiss of devotion, acid wine in my throat
Can feel it coating my stomach, sitting warm & comforting
Tilting my head, feeling straight-up & grabbing the back of your neck
Pull you past the plane, ever closer too & you breathed in my breath
The sigh of your eyes, that slow shift from looking into mine to
Looking down to, waiting closer in inches to
You smiled & in the darkness of the car swallowed by the stolen light of the field
I could see the white lines of your teeth matching the leftover white of your eyes
So 36-O miles left to go & one empty bottle of $2 wine laying on the floor
Kicking it back & forth up the 101, not sure what time it is
You had your belt off your pants, shirt hiked up, another bottle of wine cold & corked
Laying casually over your stomach between your legs, hot side hot, cold side cold
Leaning your head on the seat in my reverse-light direction
You told me that my face looks Roman in moonlight, angular & cut
And that shadows were stealing the light visage of a wide-open night
You shut your eyes & sing a song about love faraway, goodnights close than faraway again
Melody, word & note going right into my right ear saying, “well I wish you were inside of me”
I grab the bottle of wine from you, lingering on your hot stomach
Clutch it not wanting to let go but take that bottle & drink it down
Five darks seen in the streetlights repeating themselves down the freeway
Dark seats of my car cradling you & dark windows letting through light you’ll own forever
Leaves dark horizon promising unknown miles away, dark inside heart starts to
Drink down the dark red inside the bottle & you, shut my eyes letting the Beaujolais
Spill down into my throat leaving the last lingering bitter soul of it on my tongue
Evaporating into my teeth & gums like snake oil potions
And right at the bottom of the second bottle & underneath this upside-down bowl of stars
Sky’s light overhead, twinkling eternal & lasting longer than the time it takes to say no
I pull over at 228 & veer off the road, changing the side on the floor of the empty bottles
Inside pushing through the outside as your eyes close then open then flutter
Pull my car over into a ditch on the longest looking, disappearing night road
Waiting for one car to go by, see a field of orange trees with winter blossoms
Too many angles & too many shadows, cut low & hard hanging no fruit
Throw open the door & jump out telling you to do the same thing fast
And lay down on the pavement right in the middle of the road
Splitting the split of the yellow lines, listening to the black tar vibrations
Roughing up my ear, shouting into the pavement that this is our night
Rolling back in & forth on the frontage road from north side to south side
You stumble out & I get up & grab you by the arm, lean you against me
Kiss you for the forever night, old-fashioned take your hand
Look through the long line of trees for the one that looks like it has the most branches
Most arm holds & stands sturdiest, lets better light on through
And I push you up against it, pushing me up against you
Kiss you with my sweet lips tasting like eternal fruit, the Garden
Baby, this is your fall from grace & you’re taking me with you
I unbutton your shirt with my teeth & tongue
Take off your bra with the hand not holding your hands together above your head
Slide my hand down your back, you shudder, slip it between your jeans & your skin
Rotate around & undo your 501’s from the inside
Five seconds later, my pants fall & the sound of our guts is spread out there
Over the ground tilled for years to produce just the right fruit taste & tough skin
This is a particularly quiet field, nothing on the ground except pinkish flower petals
Fragrant in the night air then trailing off to nothing left
I can only get my pants to my knees, turn you around & you grip the tree
Finding in the knots of the bark strong finger holds, shaking the tree so slightly
Shaking in me, find the fit & fill, oh God, you whisper to me that the car doors are still open
Light seems to be going away & this new back in forth in fields where growing is seasonal
You shudder then I shudder to make this nothing else but the best of us & fields
You suck my second finger into your mouth, reach around & pull me hard so I stop inside
Outside you snap a branch off the tree with your hand, pull two flower petals off
Throw the branch on the ground & tell me you & I both have to eat one & say your prayer
Back on the road flying at 90 MPH to 117 on a road without cars, just trucks
I’m driving with my shirt off, pants unbuckled laying open, still swollen
Wanting more of you right now but as the miles & miles go
And as you sing the rest of the song with your head laying across the seats on my leg
Arms wrapped around the bottom & top as I stroke your hair to the rhythm of wind instruments
Your words become less & less, one two becomes one three
You fall asleep & your last word looks like a kiss without any sound
Somewhere out there on this horizon is the ocean, somewhere out there is the darkness
And somewhere out there they mingle like uncomfortable guests at a party
With cocktail conversation, tiny hors d’oeuvres dipped in plum sauces & salt
Two bottles of red wine bang together on the floor
You don’t make any sounds when you sleep
Pulling into Monterey in the middle of the night leaves not-to-scale amusement park rides
Knowing that there is a day circus at this zero mile
Parked & pulled my shirt back on, shook you lightly awake
The window open lets in the far off sound of grotesque carnival music
You rubbed your eyes awake to see me staring at the rollercoaster tracks
Wooden & old but still there, still waiting for the rolling & shaking across
This clear sky with connect-the-dot stars & planets knows nothing about these $1 games of chance
The boardwalk laying planks together for us to walk over
You grab the bottle of wine & put yourself together
We’re so close to the sunrise, sweetheart, out here
So we hop the fence of the Hurricane, run up & touch the tracks
Feel the separation in the same pieces of wood
Run up & down the U as far as we can then take off for the beach
I’m stumbling around your heart right now, can’t seem to see straight
Pulling in double-sips of good wine & following you
As you jump & spin over the sand, kicking it up as you go
Writing your initials in it with your finger followed by a heart then mine
As you pull the bottle of wine out of my hand, drink the rest down
Letting go a few drops into the sand seen even in this near-morning light
Throw me down to the ground & you land on top of me
You don’t make any sounds when you sleep until sunrise
Leaving me seeing the clarity of the sky, where it touches the sea
copyright 2006
Adam
Bresson |
