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On the Way to the Airport
You’re speeding me down the Ventura freeway in your battered Scout, patched since your angry crash into the drunken pole that swerved into your road. We’ve got no seat belts, no top, bald tires, so I clutch any metal that seems as though it might be firm, belie its rusted rattling. Under my August burn I’m fainting white, but I’m trying to give you what you want: an easy mother. For the last two days you’ve been plugged into your guitar, earphones on, door closed. I spoiled our holiday with warnings about your accidental life, said this time I wouldn’t rescue you, knowing you’d hate me, knowing I’d make myself sick. We’re speaking now, the airport is so near, New York closer than my birthday tomorrow, close as bearded death whose Porsche just cut us off in the fast lane. When you were three, you asked if God lived under the street. I said I didn’t know, although a world opened under my feet walking with you over strange angels, busy arranging our fate. Soon, if we make it, I’ll be in the air, where people say God lives, the line between you and me stretched thinner, thinner but tight enough still to bind us, choke us both with love. Your Scout, putty-colored as L.A. mornings, protests loudly but hangs on.