He was going to see his girl, he said,

and you piled into the rust-orange beast with

the flathead key and stripped column.

He was short, five-five standing on a brick,

and could barely reach the pedals.

His baby was inside her, he said,

and she was with someone else.

But it started with a bar,

the flipped switch of prefrontal neon

and a flare of invisible flame.

The night came down like a trunk lid, cavernous black.

You could fit at least ten bodies in there.

We were crows fringing the cone of light

beside the road, circling, inching over the line.

Locusts rubbed a sawing song.

He was going to see his baby, he said.

Morning was a torn sheet tacked across the window.

The trunk lid yawning open.