bronzed reflections on a young woman
looking at herself in the
side view mirror of a pickup truck,
bumpy ride on a back road to heaven,
eager not to take the road back to hell
tomorrow morning.
his light wash blue jeans
and hands with strong lines
rub back and forth on her denim,
her hands on his,
fingernails deep in each other's backs,
hands under hair and underwear
blue jeans
are for
hard labor:
gold panning
silver smithing
copper mining
steel forging.
throwing a gem at the gravel
to see just how, or if,
she will shatter,
a million sharp pieces
go flying, glimmering in texas sun,
ricochet and chip the paint
on his pickup truck, a new
hole in the knee of his blue jeans
while he crawls like cinderella
to collect the debris
as if there's a way to repair
what took millennia for
god, a female god, to forge.