You are not quite yet up in years,
but to your ears:
familiar are the faded tunes, dripping from the radio like soda from bottles you didn't quite close,
tapping from your stiff foot.

On the asphalt you walk barefoot,
because we walk barefoot where we live.
You are alive where you drive.

You are not quite yet up in years,
but in your ears:
sound declines
like each hill you descend in the fifty-two miles of wild between us,
and you ignore the posted signs
telling you to quiet the roaring and whipping of wind in your busted windows,
telling you to slow the tearing and straining of your tires.

On the asphalt and off, you know how to set fires,
because your late old man and your unseen mother taught you how.
You may not know, but I see how you deepen your brow.

Old Blue has more troubles that you may care to admit,
because she can only just make it.

Neither of you are quite up in your years,
and still I have my fears,
but they are not tears,
because you
and Old Blue
take us where we can get lost
and not feel the loss.