cold steel got love like us

I remember I once

had her blue steel, brown leather...

Once had her only tone 
metallic gold
finish
for myself

she showed me in

i showed her off



she was an impala, 1980

not quite antique


fresh enough to commute
with me


despite her thirty years
and mine
made sixty


city to city
push 2 pull
she held me upright
i held her pretty
city to city


rough ragged we maybe
seemed 2 most

and funny 2 hustlers
2 kids
just licensed
rollin'
who stopped to watch us pass
and wondered how we came
to be

she and i liked
2 steady

watch the watchers watch
as we steady
dust them

 i roll my head back2 see
through the clouds
of dust and crack

while white wheel snakes
through my black gloved hands


then she rolls us
into the farmost lane
and i kick her


train-in-drive

she kicks back!
bounces us over and

outside the lines

any poles get in our way
get bent



i floor her down the final corridors
of early morning fog...
her old school

pedal steel
collapses the

wide acute-angle  press
2 floor


had had enough of me
she had!

and my panic
patterned 
adrenaline rush
commutes
over the bay

she lived a life
volcanic
ran hot
moved slow
 in a way

with gravity
though

her dance
euphoric
 on my mind
hot by birthright
sweet patented
american steel 

she takes
yer rules-of-road
yer mandates federal
yer ideas of fair
yer fears...
she licks them speechless

swallowed B
themusic-theman-themainstream

 swallowed B

theline-thelinear-themadmadlineage
swallowed B
age-of-madness-river-cess-poolz
swallowed B

into her wake
deconditioned
decommissioned
transmissions.....
swallowed B
into her like history
that which B

swallowed by
the sea

this sucker she

will make you her bitch
and liquefy all the earth
around us
--you and me
both!--
this fucker
will have us
suck fumes

FUCK uuuuuuu!
she whines
ignited
turned over
her oilpans full with

blackblood

lifeblood like
no one never knew


but  i think
strange to say
she may love me somehow
through cold rain and
insect-coated steel?
cause 

that was back then

wasn't that?  her cursing
and groans


cause now she is all
opened up
on open road...
carrying my needy ass again
and she sounds like a ten
out of ten



and she carries us
me and mine and
our kid
eyes full moon
eclipse
 

she marries

our nineteen eighty

static images 
small town to suburban
to urban...


she crosses

the many states
of miss america...
compelling 
telling
turning


toward all
our consciousness...

always
a great distance
incomparable

like steel

and flesh


a safe way aways
sending up steam
behind lawn-hose-sprays

ribbons of rainbow
summer hydrant
waters
in our war against
the roads we travel
the residuals
washed off her


then quiet dripping
in the garage
we left her
safely kept

a safe distance

while we send up steam
beneath showerheads
 in our homes...

safely kept

steady-dripping
the day's residue
toward the drains