In The Space Between

It was a hot day even with the windows down.

His legs stuck to the vinyl seat

as he snapped his jazz fingers

to the heartbeat of the radio.

She sat with her face in the wind,

still and quiet.

They slid down the street

in his rusted heirloom of a Camaro.

It was second-hand transportation

but they wore it like movie stars.

It was a slick day.

The kind that slides its belly along the streets.

The sun was humming,

loudly and fluorescently like a ceiling light.

It was a hot day.

He licked his dry, cracked lips as she watched jealously

from the passenger seat, behind dark sunglasses.

The heat simmered on top of the asphalt.

It collected in the space between them. Humming.

The day was swallowing her.

His lips. The heat. His jawbone. His arms.

The heat. Single bead of sweat slipping down

the back of her calf. Distance between them.

Heat. Equation. Distance. Lips. Heat.

The day was swallowing her whole.

And he just kept humming as he drove,

legs still sticking to the vinyl seat.