She Was Shy

She was shy

The night was empty
As the Devil’s black heart
So quiet that it made us afraid
The summer smell of the ground
An open grave

Out there, on some God-forgotten country road

Down in the hollows where no light ever bled in

She talked,
Mostly of other men
I listened
I drank
I wished,

I don’t know
I was somewhere else,

That she would be quiet

Soon it was past midnight

After we struggled for a while

In the back seat

Sweating

With each other's demons

We went back to her place,

I lay down in her parent’s spare bedroom
And listened to the jets roar over
The obsidian roof
of the sky

1993