Passenger Seat

I see it all through a periscope:
cold concrete and a warm Coke,
and the possibility ushered in by 13 dollars on a Friday night.
I might
have learned
to drive myself by riding alongside,
which in hindsight turned the tides,
because I don't mean this in a literal
text book
tackle-and-hook sense of watching wide eyed,
but rather,
I learned to love them seperately, each in their own flawless imperfections
by noting the connections of their freckled
knuckles on the wheel,
skin like ivory steel,
and I learned how not to love them from their right blind spot,
through the signals they forgot,
the creases down their foreheads,
muttered curses at snow shed,
and the volumes of their stereos
when they let all limits go

and cruised.