on Spine Road

I take a right on Spine Road - past empty houses full of lovers and dogs hungry for peanut butter
biscuits, their food bowls still full from last night’s dinner. Fluorescent lights shine through my
sunroof, unblinking – warm – how you used to look at me. With heat: glaring streetlights and
rising sun - your bourbon and spat chew tobacco thick and solid in the air. My sticky legs on
leather-lined seats: peel them off – rip out hair, dead skin – now, how you like them. Hotter and
dissatisfied in dank air. And your shirt – still in the backseat – glowing white beneath the
window, spit stains and salt on the collar. Now my knees are gravel on the shoulder of Spine
Road –