She smiles at speed and leaves my fingers sparkling
with flashes of leather and steel.
She catches my eye in the mirror then falls away
while emerging afresh from around the next bend.
And somehow she lingers long enough to inject my lap and push me
back deep into each crack in the road, caught in filtered sun
through the crash of leaves, drawing out fear with a surge of adrenaline
pooling in the pit of my stomach and sinking into my sack of stones
that ache and hunger for the straight and the late brake
over the reek of grease, oil and fully leaded fuel,
dyeing my skin a slippery shade of tarmac, diluted by blood
and black rain blinding me with a flimsy sheen shimmering
between me and a dark montage of cries and stillness,
til I pass a pyre that devours young ambition for long life
and casts shadows of a long breath held at the finish,
its threat caught in her smile,
until the next time.
Watching Le Mans '66.
