The bald cigarette butt of a night turned
            pale yellow in the rain and we were almost
inside when the lights went out. We were
            so close to home soil we could almost take
root and grow, not that we knew what seed
            we were, what leaf, what branch we would
spit forth into the next growing season’s sun. We
            were spent ash and tannins. We greyed
the ground around us. We didn’t know any
            other way but out—in all directions. And this
is what drove us, with or without a car, into the high-
            way gutter, into runoff and wrappers. There,
we let carburetors say the names we were leaving.
            There, the thumbtacks and stars couldn’t tell
each other apart. But we told each other apart.
            And we learned, spent filter and dirt-nailed, to keep
our word.