I’d have wanted to crawl — to wind down 

windows, witness every dirt tread 

caress oilslick macadam, inhale 

the black — if I were him. But I am 

still a back-seat driver and here

see his callow form before headlights, 

slant rain in darkness, digging 

this for us. The hands that will hold 

our bodies swell and burn, calloused.

Behind the wheel now, crack’d leather old,

king of his road still 

he feels, perhaps, a pulse steal the arc

of his spine. An arcane twitch of muscle memory.               

The weight of young passengers. 

An insight of speed, time blurs to tail-lights.