you curl your fingers around the nape of the
passenger seat and the cold
metal stings but you can feel the
ghost of the prey brush your body
like the streetlights on the backseat last night
before you clutched the headrest and
you reach in the dark but
your hands miss the leather

the warm body heat of the car
thrumming up beneath you slams
your head into the dashboard where
the light turns from a bruised yellow to a crippled red
you are awake again
the steering wheel is cooler than you remember
smoother, sleeker, stealthy the wheel
will turn the predator around in a circle because
it seems to mimic itself where
in mimicry it is found
oh tyger tyger simmering out
you drive.
the gear shift does not obey when you
push it up rough and messy but it
locks in gear while you
wrap your fingers around the curve
and grind to a halt in the road
you cannot make this cliff.
the light in the dash blinks.
the trunk is opening and the vehicle is still moving
you roll down your window to ask the night a question in the glazed white of moonlight that is
so much like forgetting
will this road take me back to Del Sol and the Girl Who Lost Her Lover on Route 66?
she doesn't respond but
that is okay because the vehicle is still moving
and the leather is slick between your thighs
and you are going down
tonight you will descend.
the night will draw you home.
goodnight lover.