pandora picks aaliyah

this song

takes me back

to what seems now like youth into saturn return

and you

and that crappy old car radio with the broken cassette

and all that washboard

and all that open space

and all that dust kicking up into our skin

into that tiny mountain cabin

candles burning hot we would fuck like the earth was opening

then primp for the bar in the flickering light

while the radio crackled and hissed

pop songs

drove steep dirt roads in the night

you kept a baseball bat behind your seat

you held my hips while i danced

this song takes me back

to need heavy

old as the hills butch femme

lust

damage

and revenge

and that old truck that broke your arm

you kept a rag stuffed into the hole where the gas cap shoulda been

you had to the hit the starter with a metal pipe to get it to turn over

i loved watching you pop the hood climb in there and beat that engine

made me wanna turn you over take you back

you pulled femme shine from my stone

like brilliant cholla flowers from santa fe sun

like prayer under my breath

i still ask

for your forgiveness

for my own anger made my breaking drove

our screeching

what i’ve learned from us

how i’ve changed

how together we were fumes and flame

combustion

but also climbed into the woods and sat

in wild silence

watched spiders spin webs

laughed at bird song

but you

like aaliyah

are gone now

just memories and spirit

kicking up like dust once

in while when music takes me unawares

turns me over

takes me back

like saturn returning

to you.