babyhead

We fly with the biggest city at our backs. The afternoon's redheaded light stutters with shadows across your dusty dashboard. You travel home with me, or maybe we only travel north together. Your eyes are following the highway, as you finger the outside pocket of your jacket and ask me to roll up my window. There is a crumbled wax envelope that holds the last of the burnt peanuts you bought off a street vender. You eat them all, and you don't ask, because you don't need to ask, and so, you don't.

I listen to the movements of your mouth, and look for something other than the Helium cassette. It is all I ever want to listen to, when you drive your car. So, I put it in and turn the volume down low.

You have peanuts in your teeth,

when you ask me: Do you consider that singing?

I want to smoke a cigarette and wash my face. I was not made to answer questions, I compile notes, I take down details, I recite linier and nonlinear events, and I ask the questions.

I answer: Just remember, people all over the world, listen to Dylan multiple times a day, and walk away pleased.

You ask again: So, she is singing?

I say: That is how Mary sings, and it's your cassette tape.

You say: I'm not ever going to have a baby with you.

You do not feel the need to look at me as you say this, and I am not sure where this statement comes from.

I ask: Are you asking me, or telling me this?

You say: Your sister, you know what I mean, about her not being happy, depressed, you know it's in the genes.

There is not even a stray hand on my face or leg or neck to even try to soften your words.

I ask: Why were you thinking of having a baby with me?

I say: You throw my toothbrush away every time I leave it at your house, and you can't even see me more than eight times in three weeks without calling us off for a month.

I ask: You decide that you are not going to have a kid with me because my sister was crazy?

I say: I love you, but I didn't think a baby was where we were going.

I look out the car window.

I have nothing left to say.

I move my eyes over this morning, in Central Park where I saw places the sun worked freckles on to your back, and I kissed the points where they bloomed on your shoulders. You tried to smile, and I quickly saw the ridges on the inside your left wrist, as you talked with your hands through your greens and spring roll. I followed the lines that stay pale in full summer shine.

You roll down your window and smoke.

I study the industrial park, as we bank the turn through West Springfield.

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