The car is moving forward, tail lights far ahead gliding gently up and down the hills, as the warm glow of the bulbs in the dashboard cocoons me in this closed and quiet space but my mind, as if my spine were to the wheel, carries me backward to the driveway between our houses where I stood and longed for you, to the bed we should have shared but never did, to all those beds I did share with you through others, the same softness, and darkness of the eyes, the smile  that brings the embrace, and then peace, a melding of souls, hearts beating against one another naked I wrap myself around them all, and you, as in the daylight I walk toward the mailbox ahead of me all the while feeling somehow I'm walking backward.

 

 

 

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