Three, Two, One

He jumps in his car and drives,
from the Oakland docks, remember?
and drives fast
O, Death, Ralph Stanley,
running round on a loop, his sound system
crackling and dull, old-time tinny to the ear,
the orange Karmann Ghia convertible with the black top,
pushing Interstate 80 all the way, headed east,
against the sun,
turning back the hands of time,
those lily white cold ones, blood red sharp nails,
caress him, ease him on home
to the epicenter, see it one more time,
all roads lead to one. One, where they met.
Ground zero, the glint in their eyes.
The life I have now lived, he thought, smiling at the end,
has never been written down this way
to this last syllable of my beginning.