While Driving Back From A Fellow Bachelors Cabin

i want your bare feet
on my dashboard

as we pass
the tampers and graders
rollers and loaders
the provisional cities
preparing cities
for an expansion
of traffic
making a place
for the flow
of the future
from behind barricades
and crash walls

i want your bare feet
on my dashboard

the possessive "my"
misleads

my car
your car
rental car
that part
of my longing
is not particular

the gesture warms me
in and of itself

the admission
of comfort
a level of agreement
implicit
tacit
statement
that for now
i'm doing the driving
and you are
totally OK with that

the trust
that for now
there is no exit
to look for
or any specific lane
to be in

you can be
off-duty
with me

while we describe
a line through
a succession of towns
with curious names
the provenance
of which we may
never learn

or rather
more precisely
a succession
of white letters
in universal font
on reflective
green rectangles
that combine to form
the names
of places
that may or may not be
known for
their garlic pickles
their shetland ponies
or for having
a bank that was hit
by the james gang
or what have you

these are the phonemes
the syllables
these hidden histories and
strivings
that comprise
the rhythm
of our ribbon

we are writing our story
one mile marker
at a time

and in this vision
i've got a few
more hours left in me

i banish
all disruptions
forego coffee or tunes

i've got all i came here for
i've got your bare feet
on my dashboard