We Went Long Up Kettle Road

We went long up Kettle Road in Jimmy’s truck, knowing we’d be early, laughing like we’d been sniffing glue, and smelling like sweat because of the work we did in the sun, pouring a concrete slab for Paul and his cousin’s kids to set up a ping pong table on. Pot smoke and the radio half broke. It goes like this, he was saying, Blah blah blah blah, as he tried to sing, then laughing and I was laughing, telling him to watch the road and don’t smoke so much. La la la. Jasper howling in the back bed to accompany this silly damn dumb opera banging along the road around us, knocking down all the trees with its melody like a laser saw. I am a cloud. I am a sunflower. A red and tan womangirl with hard, dry, hands cracked in the palm, scraped on the knuckles. I am a hard dry heart with one pink ribbon waving in the breeze from under my blood breast. He will know it one day. His mussed blonde hair. His mussed blonde smile and teeth. One day we will understand better the river of want that goes through us. Where it goes. Where it comes from. And maybe we can toss a lasso around its neck to hold it like a little moon-horse before it breaks free, to drag us along as it sends itself over the falls. Bob will be annoyed when he gets home and sees us in the driveway. He’ll roll his eyes and groan. He will have his empty thermos and his tired face and will pet and play with Jasper and talk to the dog as though we are not there. For a while. Then we will all go inside. And we’ll get the TV he owes Jimmy. And we’ll drink the beer in his fridge and then he will sing, too.