The used car ads in the Sunday newspaper 
were thumbed through over Katya’s warm honey kasha 

by my grandfather. He craved the rumble of an engine, 
the glide of a Lincoln town car across the smooth avenues, 

cruising cool like a toucan, mango sweet tropical breeze. 
I am just sixteen and he might have taught me by now, 

guided my foot to the pedal and my hand to the revving keys, 
but he is no longer trigger and impulse, so here I am 

in the backseat of your mother’s old car, 
learning something other than how to drive. 

There, in that empty parking garage of greasy 
fast food wrappers, abandoned shopping carts, gasoline and piss, 

I remember how you adjusted me like the rearview mirror 
with both hands. I let you. You lifted me up 

with your arms locked around my chest and shook 
me back and forth. The spare change in the cupholder clattered. 

My heart and lungs rattled in my ribs like quarters. One, two, three, four 
makes a dollar, they told me in elementary school. That the teasing 

from boys only proved your significance. That you should chase them 
around the playground dizzy until collision. 

Spin in the carousel, the centrifugal force tearing away your skin, 
round and round and round because isn’t this love?