I Get Lost in Highway Heat - Litrus Magazine

I.
Somewhere between the latitude of
Hank Williams, the longitude of Pancho
Villa, we meet dead-on, engines gunning
Wheels embedded in molten asphalt

I turn off the radio where some
AM señora has been weeping static
Pull the soda cup from between my thighs
Peel myself off the bucket seat

And weave your way, heels tracing
Half-moons on the tarry road
Your engine coughs twice, fails its physical
And you spit something dark out the window

Tobacco, maybe, or venom, before sliding,
Slow as geology, from a primer-colored Ford
The imprint of my heels spells something
Seductive in cuneiform, like “Help me”

And you flick yourself, like a spent
Cigarette, in my general direction
That’s when I start to lose my nerve
Start thinking of heavy rocks, car door locks

The cell phone pleading for reception
The atlas lying wilted on my dashboard
But Rand McNally won’t help me now
On this still stretch of highway where

I Get Lost in Highway Heat
sarah torribio

Asphalt will "flow" if it is hot enough but that is not usually considered "melting" which is usually confined to cases where the transition occurs at a sharp temperature.

-Vince Calder, physical chemist

Asphalt is flowing, approximating magma
You are hydrogen light, and twice as flammable
I am lightheaded, lungs fisting for air,
Pumping petroleum hydrocarbons instead

I need something periodic, a table of the elements,
Or a subscription that arrives each month, wrapped

In furtive brown paper, to explain why I keep moving,
Why I keep tracing tarry half-moons

Why I keep weaving your way

II.
Somewhere north of the Tropic of Capricorn,
Three yards south of the broken line across which
Coyotes have panted and trucks have jackknifed,
The earth trembles, threatening to thrust up

A jagged wedge of igneous rock, or a caution sign
I watch myself from somewhere to the left of my
Eyes, registering without complaint the slow-drip
Loss of sanity, of my bearings, of all sense of direction
The wind gives a death rattle, takes a last long drag
And I try to hammer together some kind of plan

For two minutes the wind makes like a playground
Bully, tugging my hair and tossing dust in my eyes,
Until I can only find myself in terms of your XY
Coordinates, my 44 double-X chromosomes

The wind gives a death rattle, takes a last long drag
And I try to hammer together some kind of plan
It’s a tricky place to get lost, this strip of reconstituted
Stone, some 80 miles from the last bad truck stop

This ghost palace where sweat dries as soon it
Forms, but what can I do when I am half-choked by
Sulfur and silt, when only an act of supreme will keeps
Me from falling to my knees in this unreasonable heat?

That’s when you turn on the charm, snap me
Out of helpless viscosity with a doorjamb hip-slam,
Remember to make the shape of a smile, let the
Corners of your eyes crinkle like a badly folded map

One leading not to the houses of stars or the cold haunts
Of constellations but to a trail of barns burnt black
Rubber checks, a dozen warrants for your arrest, alibis,
Double-lives, bitter ex-wives, friends kilt with knives

I taste smoke, smell the kind of trouble you never shake,

In this bad mix of bad company and empty space, broken
Only by an electric tower holding hands with severed
Power lines that wave and wave, giving me the go-ahead

I keep weaving your way

III.
Somewhere in an expanding universe
Where planets chase each other like
Playful hares, I’m moving again, pulled by
Something that can only be called magnitude

We circle one another and exchange insurance
Information because it’s clear, no matter what
Happens, one of us is going to get hurt
Mercury is rising, and I’m pretty sure it’s retrograde

That it’s only a matter of time before you jerk your
Head to the side of the road as if it were a
Destination instead of a terminally unwise, hard-left,
Bitch-flip, salt-lick, button-fly, dead-end dive

You are shifting heat blur, neither gas nor solid
A blinking busted sign in this spot where the
Temperature hovers mean between the surface
Of the sun and the inside of an Easy-Bake Oven

I’ve seen you before, maybe in a movie,
Cheap, straight to video, made cheaper
By your bit part, your low-slung jeans
Or was it a work camp I drove by slow?

Where you hung from the exercise yard fence
Three pull-ups below barbed wire, fingers
Grasping metal like the mother who never
Loved you, the father who liked to shove you

Yeah, you’re familiar as my neighbor’s dog
As the crude line drawing taped to the post
Office wall for so long you know for sure
The sorry bastard will never be caught

You interrupt my thoughts to prove me right
Direct my traffic to a lonely spot you know a bit

Too well, somewhere between Four Corners
And the venerable ciudad de Aguascalientes

I keep weaving your way

IV.
Somewhere between the Big Bang and the
White dwarf, illegal firecracker end of the world
The road is softening like skin, call boxes are
Melting slow and Dali-weird, and ants are fleeing

Like little flames beneath the snakeskin boots
You’ve slid under a hundred beds, and I am
Softening too, every catechism lesson I ever
Learned draining from me like sap, while the

Sun does its two-step over the bored horizon
You ask me my name, give me your handle
Something that sounds distinctly unfamiliar
On your tongue, give me one last chance to run

Whisper its name, Velas de Coyote, Coyote’s
Candles, just so I know you can you talk,
Breath hung thick with barley and hops,
With steak cooked rare on the engine block

Now I shift, become accessory, willingly take
Off my college degree, forget all words like
Thank you and please, try on a shape that just
Might be me, yeah, this might be the real me

That’s when you start your legerdemain, an act
That carries a 12-state ban, and I play dumb, let
My brain go numb, try a new act they call succumb
Take your road-worn heatstroke as it comes

I am moving side-to-side now
You’ve lit my rattlesnake fuse
I’m firmly lost in highway heat
And I’m following your groove

I just keep weaving your way

VI.
Somewhere beneath the Aztlan sun
A truck, filled with tomatoes ripe near to
Bursting, is lumbering slow on a road
Cooled slick and shiny as an obsidian thread

Soaked with neon, choked with Freon,
I cool down, too, while you take your cue
Say goodbye the way men like you do
Put on your shades and whistle to your pit crew

Let me know we’re really through
And I don’t waste time in taking the hint
I brush aside your refried sentiments
Let you lift my hood in one last intimacy

Listen to my engine, make sure I don’t need
Another jump before you toss that hairshirt
Horsehide blanket of yours in the bed of the truck
Where I have firmly began to suspect that you live

Watching your tailpipe, your faded headlights
I plot my own escape from this stretch of highway
Emptier than a doomsday diner, from this blistered
Path of senseless heat locked on repeat

I will make for somewhere, anywhere
To San Miguel Allende, Mexico, where Neal
Cassidy took his last cold breaths
Or at least to the next bad truck stop

But first I’ll find a place to stay, remember how
To write my name, cool my skin with anything,
Shower nozzle, Solarcane, overflowing
Water main, a spray to make me tame again

I’m shaking, I’m sweating, I’ve lost my way
I’ve never been so tired
I wouldn’t know me in a crowded room
But I’ve made friends with desire

I start weaving away