Driving for hours.
Nothing but road.
Me, head slumped
on one shoulder,
watching the rain
screech across the window.
You took over
as we crossed into Wisconsin,
the pattern of the steering-wheel
embedded in your palms.
Still got coffee from a café
a hundred miles back -
now like gloopy mud stuck in a cup.
The radio throws out
another Bon Iver track
as the wipers squeak
from side to side.
Both of us tired.
I see your eyelids flicker
between awake and not quite awake.
We stop for gas in Mazomanie.
The engine wheezes to a halt,
I hand you thirty bucks
which empties my wallet.
You stumble from the car
in a sluggish daze.
I try to shake my body alive,
my limbs heavy,
bones cracking.
Phone barely has any juice.
Enough to text home
a be home soon.
As we set off again
you give me a kiss,
a dash of caffeine on your lips.
I pinch my skin to a light red.
This is not in a dream.
Written: April 2015.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time - deliberately kept simple. Regards a couple driving home late at night after having been somewhere far away. Mazomanie is a real place in the USA. After looking for places where I could set this poem, the town's name appealed to me, hence its use in the writing, and also as the title. Not based on real events. All feedback welcome as normal.
NOTE: Many of my older poems will be removed from HP in the coming months.