I had three loves before you, all cars. Purring confidants, I drove each to the ground. Oil, rust, sometimes I think it was my heart that broke. O God, the old pine roads, low fields, orchards, a single yellow line and a tape or disc or just the aching radio hissing in the foothills! My heart a combustion engine, everything burnt deeply and throughly. I raced with nothing to race against, spent the night sleeping in them, waking every half-hour to turn the engine on and let the heaters cook. In Montreal we crawled back to her, a tan Contour in the parking lot outside of the Irish pub and slept like logs locked safe inside. In the morning we pulled the seats up and headed East, grain feilds, the rising sun, barely followed signs. Each one died, I sold the last for rent, if it wasn’t for the kindness of strangers I couldn’t change a tire but my soul, my soul has gone into it and my dreams have switchbacks. And you, my love, my new heart, must know this. All I would ask is that you could make me feel so free.
