Poetry...

For Jay Bolotin
By James Humphrey


The rain
turning to sleet.
You and I
rolling along
a highway
in Massachusetts
in The Incomparable
'56 Olds
at night- early evening
in "Summer's
light," but night
now, December 6th,
1972, drinking
good scotch.
The rhythms 
of the car, the
engine, the
wheels, the
windshield wipers,
the heater- the
hunger there
in all of the car,
in all of you,
in all of me
if it can be put
into a word/ words
to survive.
The city we're approaching,
a building there, a room
in the building. The chairs
there, the blackness
of the room, the emptiness
there, like a poem
in a closed book. People
on their way there
to that room, people
gathering there
in that room, sitting
on the chairs, smoking,
talking, waiting for you
to sing your songs
and play your guitar,
and me to read my poems.
The night 
around us. The
noises of the sleet
against the car. The
car itself. Us