Hitchhiker

As I round the curve to the open road

I catch her come-on thumb in the distance

and my thoughts begin to assess every possibility.

The approach is a targeting, homing in on those things that tell me

where she’s been, what chit-chat is liked and the music she listens to;

her hair will have the smell of a bedroom shared with another:

there in the dark curls, there in the lovelock across her eye, and

her long legs have walked the whole mile to this place at the roadside -

all of this is in a clear outline because I’ve seen it a thousand times.

Getting closer, I can taste cigarettes and red wine;

the chocolate she licked from fingers at breakfast after making love.

I know how later on she will rest her head on my shoulder

pretending to fall asleep, and I will look down at her tired, tangled legs

then back to curves along the open road.