The road has rolled out
                like a wet thick tongue,
saliva droplets of rain.

But you hardly notice,
                foot pressing
harder against the gas pedal.
                Can your car
keep up with you,
and your stubborn hands,
                gripping the steering wheel
                because it’s a real thing you
can hold in front of you?

                The stereo is playing
like a heartbeat, the one seemingly missing
from your barren ribcage.
                Static enters as you
drive your Saturn to the edge of the road.

                Haze and dusk mix
together complimentary,
                like Hennessey with Sprite.
Bitterness and sweetness are feelings
                sensed around
the review mirror with your eyes in
it, staring.

                You think this is the end.
The aches have attached themselves
                like extra sets of bone.
                You’re twenty; you can’t
imagine yourself reaching
forty, but there she is,
                a woman,
                who looks like she’s eighty, still here,
and grabbing for envelopes
inside an open mouthed mailbox.

                You stop. She reminds you of your
grandmother. Your fingers reach for the
phone sunbathing on the fabric passenger seat.
                She’s so intent on searching through
on searching through
                have you forgotten
how your mind used to slip through
darkness so easily?

                You imagine how
the woman viewed herself in the mirror
                sixty years ago,
                young and doused in creamy pink silk,
belly poking out
like a soft sea sponge deep
                in the ocean, her feet
                sunken into the plush carpet.

You drop
                the knife in your hand
                and stop asking questions.

Dusk settles. At the end of the day
                what we bring inside us, is what? you ask
                and at the end of life,
what else do bodies plan to give?