This Couple

Now is when we love to sit before mirrors

with a dark beer or hand out leaflets

at chain-link gates or come together after work

listening to each other’s hard day. The engine dies,

no one hurried to go in. We might

walk around in the yard not making a plan.

The freeway is heard but there’s no stopping

progress, and the week has barely begun. Then

we are dressed. It rains. Our heads rest

against the elevator wall inhaling a stranger;

we think of cliffs we went off

with our laughing friends. The faces

we put our lips to. Our wonderful sex

under whatever we wear. And of the car

burning on the side of the highway. Jukeboxes

we fed. Quarters circulating with our prints.

Things we sent away for. Long drives. The rain. Cafes

where we ate late and once only. Eyes of an animal

in the headlamps. The guestbooks that verify

our whereabouts. Your apple core in the ashtray.

The pay toilets where we sat without paper. Rain.

Articles left with ex-lovers. The famous

ravine of childhood. Movie lines we’ve stood in

when it really came down. Moments

we have felt forsaken waiting for the others

to step from the wrought-iron compartment,

or passing through some town with the dial

on a Mexican station, wondering for the life of us,

where are we going and when would we meet.

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