i met a girl in the grocery store parking lot
i could tell she liked me an awful lot
i felt like a real winner
when she invited me for dinner
but now my toes are boiling in her ***

chili cheese dogs, root beer at the drive-in
spot. the place with the orange roof. then we
cruise the quiet downtown as the sun drops
low and gleams from behind the buildings. it
winks through the trees as we roll into the
country.  windows down, midwest summer air
pouring in as we pass under a gray
cloud.  i feel a cool prickle on my arm.
a song on the radio drifts away.
whipping twilight wind.  rain falls like glitter
through the waning gold on the horizon.

a desert wind blows over waves of sand,
carving new shapes and shadows.  and you don't
look at me with the same eyes anymore.

a brand new ceiling fan was installed in
my bedroom with an apartment upgrade
and as its hum whispers me to sleep, i
wonder if my dreams drift up and get pushed
around the room and out the slightly cracked
window and carried by the summer night
breeze into another open window,
only to melt inside the sleeping brain
of someone else, filling it with faces
and places otherwise unknown to them.
and then i wondered if my fan pulls dreams
in the cracked window, so i pushed it closed.

a sip of red wine
at the start of the evening
pastels streak the sky

jutting twilight clouds
rest low on the horizon
like pink-tipped mountains

i am a strand
a single strand
a single strand of soul
that reaches deep into the earth
and out into space
a single golden strand
growing to infinity
long after the body is left

stranded