Rush Hour, version 4

You, street, you like it, the stink
of the machine, hanging hot
over your skin, hot already with sun,
hot already in the black of you, paling,
as the youth fades, the darkening of
burning.

You, street, you need that jerk jerk jerk
slow over the face you turn up to tire,
to rain, to cloud passing over the single
sun, the cold creep of a broken night wheel
among the glass crumbs spattered
on an older skin.

You, street, you breathe it, the exhausted
cough and the muscled grumble, the
wheeze, the growl. You breathe it,
the long body of you expanding, taking it up.
You breathe it out all night, squeezing
the quiet out.

You, street, you take it, going nowhere,
the fastness of your progress out of town,
the only way allowed. You take it loud.
And you take it far, street to street, road
and road and road and track, this path
that trick of trail.

You, street, you carry past capacity,
past velocity, past city, past farm, past
one last turn, the truck’s churning gravel
as its wheels spin and grip and gripe
and the body lurches leaving what
help you gave.

You, street, you don’t want a thing.