Tap Dancing on the Silverado Trail

Vineyards reach as far as a BART train 

for several stations down a two-lane highway 

stretching into night and hugging the ground 

where love walked away grabbing her hand.  

In a hybrid car she told her mother 

how a man cleaned her out with a dab of his finger,

traced her lips, the crows feet in her eyes 

then called her name to the stars in disguise.  

Together they altered weather patterns,  

changed a winter storm into a summer caftan. 

Those first few months from couch to car,  

they stirred clockwise into each other  

tap dancing on the highlights of dawn 

in rivulets, torrents, up-side-down

guitar strings stretched for several octaves  

along a fault and into mountain ranges  

leaving the bones of her smashed life set,  

injury into dust disintegrated.  

Listening, her mother understood how love   

shakes a woman down for everything she’s worth.