Singles

They drove all afternoon. The night before,
she and the stepfather had made love, which the son
didn’t know about, just as the mother didn’t know
most of what the son did when not with her,
which was most of the time. For today,

they had planned to drive and listen
to five new recordings, none of which either
had heard except the singles. They started
with the one for which they had the lowest
expectations. They played the single first,

or what they thought it was, and it turned out
they were right. With each track, the dub
rhythms the same and still varying, it got
better and better, they agreed. By the time
the cd was over, they had come down

from the mountain behind a clot of RVs.
The second disk—a Scots band—had some
pop in the horn section, and they debated
whether “Belle and Sebastian” meant men
and women, despite the three girls on the cover.

Which led to a disk he slept through,
though he said it had more to do with
2 a.m. poker than with the music.
Already in Utah, they could only listen
to five songs on the fourth disk,

since the fifth was the one he had saved
till last, the one he thought would be best.
The single was last, so they played it first:
“Can you hear me? Hear me screaming?”
And they could, in the big echoing volley

of the song. The car filled with music.
It was a promise, without a word, breaking
in now muted skies. The day would be
forever theirs, though it was the last year
she could ever hope that he’d be hers.

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