A small remark, almost unnoticed,

then not quite believed, like those false

pools the late afternoon heat makes 
on the road you (for there is, it turns

out, a you here, and a setting, let’s

make it sun) are driving into dusk
time-wise, albeit away from dusk

geographically, moving east from

the mountain, trying to keep to the tip 
of the peak’s shadow, which in a more

fanciful mood you might regard

as a hand reaching out for you,
though not the kind of personification

you particularly like in a poem,

not this late in the game. At any rate,
this remark, when it slipped into

existence, when she gave birth

to it there between you, held itself aloft
in your thoughts, like a moon

risen in the sky of your mind and which

you saw as though you’d never seen
it rise before. It seemed incongruous

among the other thoughts—the ones

about you, the ones in her head, that is,
the ones you’d invented about you

for her head—incongruous like an old couch,

beer-brown with a permanent ditch
carved into the far left cushion, amid

the matching soft-light white of the others,

the kind of couch a new husband naively sees 
as inviting and friendly and so insists

at first on keeping in a place of prominence,

or rather he keeps insisting, but fails 
and then it’s down to the cellar

to sleep the sleep of the past. (A bit

of a stereotype, which though unfair
is familiar enough that we might

meet on common ground, you and I.)

Anyway, just before she made 
this remark, you had been so taken

with her—that is, taken with

her notions of you or, rather, taken 
with your notion of her notions

of you—that it did not seem out

of the question that someday you
might give up the old couch, let it

sink a level in the house, a house you

might one day paint together, 
an off-white to cover up the lives lived

there before you; you could see that

she was the kind to get a smudge
of paint there off-center on her chin,

which you imagined you might be called

on to remove, but then her remark slapped you 
into the present, which itself now thankfully

is safely becoming the past, falling mile

after mile into the shadow catching up
with you, a shadow that now seems less like

a hand and more like memory itself (again,

though, not a comparison you’d normally find
fetching). For it was the kind of remark

not worth recalling or believing,

better left in the dim basement
of memory, beneath the old paint blanket,

the splatter-guard that covers so many

offenses, the botched junior prom date 
with Marlie, the stumbling admission

of virginity (yours, I fear—I’m starting

to feel sorry for you), the whole summer 
camp underwear incident—but why dredge

it all up, the stiff blanket of embarrassment

covers these offenses, the way paint slaps
pesky imperfections from the molding, or

a shadow masks the potholes in the road, or

the earth’s atmosphere gives the dead, airless 
moon a kind of friendly, bon vivant

appearance, which is not at all the type

of description you favor in a poem, 
not this late, driving to who knows what

metaphor you’re capable of, under cover

of, for Christ’s sake, the second person,
a mirage you’ve never favored because

you drive up and it disappears, as the day

does to dark, which is the convenient,
comfortable blanket beneath which we sleep,

you and I, even while driving, even in daylight,

every damned day of our peaceful lives.