Lyric

I heard you before I saw you

Down by the closed repair shop

That old blue car with the cracked rear light

Rolling slow past the gravel lot

You used to arrive like weather

Too much noise for the street

All summer engine and cigarette heat

All youth under your seat

You parked beside the shuttered bakery

Where we once stole rain from the eaves

You stepped out wearing someone else’s winter

And a face that had learned to leave

I almost said your name too brightly

Like a boy trying on a dare

But you looked at me as if distance

Had always been standing there

The town kept its windows lowered

The hills held their breath in gray

Your Car Sounded Smaller

Than it did when we were young

Less like escape, more like mercy

Less like thunder, more like someone

Trying not to wake the road

Trying not to need too much

I loved you once at full volume

Now even memory speaks in hush

You asked if I still lived in the city

I said yes, and looked away

You said your brother took the farmhouse

After your mother couldn’t stay

We talked like careful neighbors

About fuel, work, rain, repair

Not about the night by the reservoir

When we swore we’d disappear

Your hand stayed near your coat sleeve

My keys stayed tight in mine

Two adults with borrowed manners

Standing where we ran out of time

A dog barked once behind the churchyard

A bus passed empty through

For a second, I saw the girl you were

Then lost her inside you

Nothing came back dramatic

No door flew open wide

The engine turned under your body

Thin and tired in the lane

I remembered how it shook the windows

When you used to call my name

But years are quiet mechanics

They loosen what they can

Until the thing that carried us

Can barely carry one grown man

You smiled without asking

If I ever thought of you

Which was kind, or cruel, or older

Than the truth we never used

I wanted to tell you something

About the city, about regret

But the shop sign swung above us

Like a promise left in debt

When you drove off toward the river

I listened longer than I should

That car once sounded like leaving

Now it sounded like it could

Break down before the crossing

Turn back before the bend

And I stood there with my hands still cold

Missing what did not happen again