"break open this new year"

"break open this new year"
written after a saturday and a ride by jake kilroy.

break open this new year
like a spinal chord readjustment.
call it a novel from the back porch of america.
what wasted lands, these backyards.
all grace and no heart.
or maybe it's just a song.
maybe it's always just been a tune
we can't stop whistling,
even when our great romance
zooms by us so bewilderingly
like a fast car jumping curbs
and kissing accidents goodbye
beneath a sky hungry for more fireworks.

tell me that story of burned rubber and smoke.
give us all the grand chance to catch up and cough.
drag out the road underneath our only hopes,
so we can call our women from the last pay phone
in the deep empty western night of the world.

this is just what we needed,
a round of drinks and meals to box up our aching
and sell it to thrift stores and buck the lot at garage sales.
all i want to do is wind up in north carolina and then upstate new york
while driving until the wheels fall off,
somewhere the coasts don't know about.
it's just a secret inside a cage,
waiting for the key to rattle in a long hallway
we call the best intentions,
but all it ever counts as is the last resort.