Put some air in the tires, baby.  

For years, she’s only opened her poor mule eyes for a few pity-miles 

to the shop, 

the bar, 

but I remember when she was like the hand of God,

pulling us from the wreckage of our parents’ lives, 

pulling us into wisdom.

So we bought America, 

even the parts we didn’t want.

And believed that we were happy.  

Now, 

even after the booze and sweat and neon revelries,

you fight to find a way to end these nights, 

looking out a window to the passing cars,

whose lights are color on the walls of our bedroom.

The weight of your unhappiness is 

the hollow at the foot of this bed. It’s scent 

is the men you dance with when the liquor blooms 

your cloth heart blaze inside a memory.      

And surely it must end this way, 

lesson taught to and by my father:

disintegration.  

This I know: 

one heart always fails before the other. 

Even still, 

I have longed to roll those terrible dice 

to win against this life just once, 

to stand before a crowd of judges in their cowls and refuse 

to lie against the witchcraft of your fingers on my cheek.   

So what if we both go down beneath the leaves?

Leaving one another in all the common ways,  

leaving me, finally, in some shit Texas town,

to crush my mind beneath these ruminations 

on the space between desire and what is. 

So what?

I once felt the stirring of a miracle. 

C’mon, Sugar,

the paint is faded but she can fly still, 

faster, maybe, than all our problems.  

Slide up next to me.  Put your hand on my shoulder again.   

See? Some things don’t change: 

the wind tearing on the windows, the beak of light before us, 

the soft-breath, sleeping world, the hum, 

the glory of this frenzied heart–

like happiness was a place 

and at night, 

a road, and a fast car 

could get you there.