Honea Express

Heat. Melted chocolate on the kitchen counter. Hand prints fading silently down the hall. Heat. Bare skin clinging to furniture warmed needy and soft. The release holding pools of sweat that feel cool but for a second against the hot, hot air. Heat.

A long ride brings comfort. A long ride lets your body ease and your mind breathe. A long ride forgives the heat and hums along to songs best played in the car. There is more road than traffic. There is more horizon than conversation. There is a sunset and you find yourself driving towards it.

The neighborhood twists like it did last summer. It turns around bright-eyed. There is a clinic on the corner with a woman being wheeled in a chair by an orderly. Her neck is bent at an unnatural angle. Her view of the sunset is unlike any I’ll ever know.

There is a father and a daughter picking flowers in the shade. She is laughing and he is soaking up every note with the sponges inside him. The flowers are slightly wilted and their job is forgotten.

A trunk is open and three people stand around it. Perhaps they are fresh from the market. Perhaps there is a body hidden inside. Perhaps they have a thing for trunks. I try to look as we pass them by but their backs are a wall and their expressions are blank.

I like to think they all saw something different.

Then there is an opening and green grass and children playing. We add ours to them. The sun sinks into the ocean and we don’t miss it.

The moon is torn down the middle. The long ride reflects this upon bodies of water and now dark windshields. A small voice says that half the moon is in his pocket. A small voice says that the cloud stretched lightly across the sky is a blanket.

Goodnight, Moon.

Goodnight, two small voices and a man saying hush.

Goodnight to the woman driving them home.

The road keeps humming and the moon sleeps sound. The heat hides, waiting.