Ann Arbor, 2:00 AM

The Tap Room, 2010

The signals were flashing red on empty streets

but you drove straight through the intersection

without even pausing.

It was obvious that you couldn't drive well

yet I wasn't frightened, or even annoyed.

I said “It's funny about the things in our lives

that give us pain, we never know

whether it's better to just forget them

or continue thinking about them until we

don't care any more.”

You looked directly at me for a moment,

with your huge brown eyes

so similar to my own,

and said “I know exactly what you mean”

but you were only pretending to know,

and it was too late to turn the car around

and return to the place where we had started;

you would have to continue driving

until we both ran out of fuel.