Rain Creek

Riding along

with my head on your shoulder

                          and feet out the window

the cotton woods rain white ashes

on the windshield of your Chrysler New Yorker

with the cigarette burns on the seats

We lose our selves on old country roads
that know each other so well not even
the locals really know where one ends
and the next begins

Out the passenger window

                      I can barely see

the green fields of next year's wheat

absorbing the last of this day's warmth

I watch you smoke with one hand,

the other draped around my bare shoulders

you steer with your left knee

and I wonder
where the ashes fall to

once they've escaped your fire