as you cracked the window,
sparked the cigarette,
flipped the brights
and stepped hard on the gas
it began
like the first
blue
chords
of that lonesome ballad
singing
so long
through the voyeur, Night,
the onyx,
tear-drop notes -
the autumn memories -
fallen
in a chorus
on your stereo,
repeating
to sing you to sleep.
repeating
to keep you awake.
at first,
you didn't know
what you saw
when they
flashed
against the yellow
highway tracers.
but they came
again:
three simple words
wept from a hand
in white paint
on black asphalt,
crying, "DoN't DO thIs,"
and passing away,
vanishing
like the time,
as they say, in yearbooks
and gift cards,
before life was reduced
to dollars and cents,
when you were fifteen
on a hill
in the mute mist
of a snow-globe,
kissing your friends,
kissing the moon,
shedding your clothes, smoking
your first joint.
learning
what it was to make love
with your eyes,
and so you had slowed
your pace, leaned
on the wheel, dragged,
breathed, when they came again,
more words
startled in the headlights:
"TURN BACK . . .
tUrN BAck."
like that fugitive ardor
conceived in the flesh -
the eclipse of the mind
in the shadow
of the heart -
that thunders within you,
wherever you are:
(drinking your coffee,
reading your paper,
watching the streets,
the cold, battered
streets)
like a bullet of starlight
it hits you.
and for a moment
the whole of your life
can be felt
in your breath.
you know yourself, you know
your fears, your beauty -
you are alive in that moment,
in that feeling.
and then,
nothing changes.
in the flames
of your joy, in the flames
of your peace
it is consumed,
and almost
forgotten.
you plunged
and the words
passed under you,
one by one,
mile by mile.
"TURN BaCK . . .
tuRn bACk,"
they cried,
like mourning
the death of an ant.
"TURN BACK,
I MAdE a MIsTAKE,
I mAdE a MIStake,"
like watching
the Night spy
our waking world
through two crows
swimming the sky,
"I LoVe you,
I loVE YoU,
i lOvE YOU,
I LOVe yOu,
tUrn bacK."
then the words
were gone,
like a breath, like a life.
and so you drove
on,
like a dream
you were fleeting
like a moment of feeling
when your soul could be seen
like a thirst for conviction
in a song you keep playing
for a reflection
of love
written
in the road.