Driving through the canyon at dark,
I sing along with the radio.
I stumble on the lyrics
and make up the verses I don’t know.
Earlier tonight, I watched again
the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.
I knew all the words, have heard them before,
have read them and said them
and wept for them a dozen-some times.
We did not stay for the ending,
not because it always ends the same,
but because it was late and past time
for the children to be in bed.
But I wanted to stay, to watch
as the terrible knives
did their terrible work.
It is perhaps not so different
from the way we slow
when driving past an accident,
curious about just how bad it can get.
It gets bad. And sometimes
traveling through the wreck of love
I wish there were a script
I could study to know
which right words came next.
And sometimes I am glad
to be driving through the dark,
forgetting the words, humming
through the bridge, making it up
as the turns get tighter.