My lover tells me about car theft while I eat blueberries

 

My lover tells me about car theft while I eat blueberries

My lover and I sit
beside a basket of pansies, pounding
gin while the other hotel guests
come and go
through the vestibule, la-dee-da.

He tells me about the time he was 17, high
on zoomers, Jack Daniels, god
knows what
when he and his friend Dave hot-wired
a Camaro, joy rode
it past the Perimeter Highway, out
to the black Manitoban byways, in
and out of ditches, fields
until finally they crumpled
against a sign that read
Seven Sisters Hydro Dam, Danger
and the hood of the car deflated
like bedsheets and Kleenex.

He wasn't driving
but after they both crawled laughing
from the passenger window, stood
dazed on the edge
of the highway, my lover
was the one who unspooled
paper towel across the leather
seats, set the paper
on fire. He's smoking

an Export A as he tells me.
I'm eating blueberries
from a plastic bowl.
The air smells of pansies
and abandon.