The low-green light from the console
stretching over your face, hands, body,
windows cracked to let the smoke out—
some cheap pot’s all it takes to turn
my head into a landscape of memories
like I’m blurred across a canvas
of one of those French painters—
Impressionists, I think they’re called.

I slept through most of Art History,
but I remember two or three slides
clicking through the projector’s wheel
like gears locking home in a new tranny—
a sound I dream about, would pay to hear
even if I didn’t give a damn about cars
couldn’t rebuild an engine in forty hours flat
or trace a leak in a fuel line.

Those foggy landscapes, smeared-on skies,
smiling waitresses in a fuzzy café,
stuff I never really understood, much less
cared about. But right now, with the radio
hovering over our voices, and the engine’s hum
almost visible through the windshield,
your arms are soft and illuminated like candles
and are keeping my eyes open, waiting for that next click.