It was in the days of Ballantine Ale and no seat belts, when Lucky Strikes cost twenty-five cents a pack and the smoke warmed your lungs like a caress. Together we put the top down and she had it in gear before I jumped over the door and into the passenger seat. I said “Go” and she did, and the curves by the river leaving town were as smooth as hers, and they were fast. And when she leaned her head back and took the sun in her face, and her red hair flowed all around, it was then that I fell in love with her long neck and the fleshy softness of her earlobe with the gypsy hoop, and the way that the points of her collar fluttered as we slid away from it all.
Roderick
Bates is a Vermonter and Dartmouth graduate. He has published poems in
The Dark Horse, in Naugatuck River Review, and in the online journal Rat's Ass
Review (which he now edits). He also writes prose, and won an award from
the International Regional Magazines Association for an essay published in
Vermont Life.
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