Night Cruise

On Route 69, trees line the road
like black arms to drown you with.
Girls plunge to their deaths
from the hoods of cars,
the backseats of Buicks.

Dusk is a small brush fire,
an amalgamation of yearning.
He’ll spread her roughly
under the stars on the midnight-blue
Camaro. His smile like the tip
of her lipstick, always thinning,
breaking off.

Once, the blood pooled within
the tight crevice of her jeans.
Blossoms spreading lush and terrible
as her mother’s poinsettias.

Sadness pools in her eyes
as the wheels slice the snake-tongued road.
She wishes she would have drowned long ago
in that beautiful, red-black emptiness.