Interstate Sonnet

A cigarette kiss in the desert. The wind-proof arc of flame sparks inside the speeding Buick. Menthol: a break from the monotony of highway nicotine— most intimate of drugs. Make this mean sorrow or thermodynamics, whatever small gesture there is time for. Light another one, the vainglorious interstate dusk and ash—the long, silver tooth. This shirtless abandon, this ninety-mile-an-hour electric laugh. The edges of windshield, haphazard chatter. The clatter of the hubcap and the thunderclap: the white-hot retinal memory of your life as a Joshua tree. Permanence in the passenger seat. This long haul, this first drag—nothing like cinnamon, nothing like the iron taste on the back of your mortal tongue.