“Cruising Lake City”
by Chris Forhan

Car full of fuckups, unlaureled easy ironists,
’twas witlack we suffered, ’twas sixteen
and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
and inexact timing, fingers drumming the dash
and seat backs, a kind of piety in that,
Scott’s mom’s dilapidated Plymouth,
burger bags, bullhorn for public wisecracks
in Kurt’s Pakistani accent, ’twas certitude
and love, love
like a fox that gnawed at our chests, Al
rolling his window down on Beth’s block
to place in each mailbox
a tiny mustard pack, I
slouched in the back, a mistake with a face,
what fuse in Sue Cardinal’s heart
had blown so it could not want me, so it would not
grieve if I kneeled and died
beneath her window, unhouseled, how about that,
night fog like wool in the trees,
none of us mentioned it, directionless
we rode, conjunctionless, without
although, without because, just
this, this, this
and us, which was almost enough.