cold steel got love like us -ii-

cold steel got love like us  -ii-
by katya mills
dedicated to my junked 19080 chevy impala


Fresh enough to commute with me. despite her thirty years. and mine.
rough and ragged we went. city to city. sometimes spent. sometimes
full up with gas, speed, and adrenaline. she held me up. she moved me.
city to city. all around the bay. we looked hard 2 most. until you looked
close. we looked funny 2 hustlers, rough & ragged, pushin' double dubs
down international boulevard. They laughed at us girls slidin' on down
macarthur... rollin' slow like gangsters down market or west.

Some stopped and wondered how we came to be. Then pushed easily
past us in their escalade suv's. She and i liked 2 steady watch the watchers
watch as we steady dust them...nahh. not usually, anyway. but we didn't
need to wipe the dust off. My baby was color of dirt.

To get behind the wheel was rollin' back the years for sure. that heavy chevy.
 the steel. the weight. i can feel it. i roll my head back 2 see through clouds.
dust and cracks in the mirror. the wheel like a snake through my black gloved hands.
she rolls us into the far most lane and i kick her train-in-drive. In a second or less,
she kicked back.

We roll over and outside the lines. any poles in our way get bent. i floor her
down the final corridors of early morning fog...her old school. pedal steel. collapses the
wide acute-angle  press 2 floor.

She had had enough of me. i couldn't get enough of her. me and my panic patterned
adrenaline rush commutes over the bay. she lived a life volcanic. She ran best hot.
moved slow in a way, with gravity. Memories always euphoric on my mind.

She was hot by birthright-- sweet, patented, american steel.