For Jay Bolotin

The rain
turning to sleet

You and I
rolling along

a highway
in Massachusetts

in The Incomparable
’56 Olds

at night—early evening
in “Summer’s

light,” but night
now, December 6th,

1972, drinking
good scotch.

The rhythms
of the car, the

engine, the
wheels, the

windshield wipers,
the heater—the

hunger there
in all of the car,

in all of you,
in all of myself,

if it can be put
into a word/words,

to survive.

The city we’re approaching,
a building there, a room

in the building. The chairs
there, the blackness

of the room, the emptiness
there, like a poem

in a closed book. People
on their way there

to that room, people
gathering there

in that room, sitting
on the chairs, smoking,

talking, waiting for you
to sing your songs

and play your guitar,
and me to read my poems.

The night
around us. The

noises of the sleet
against the car. The

car itself. Us

from The Re-Learning. Copyright © James Humphrey Trust

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