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copper magnesium cobalt in the summer air.
               In Tobacco Heaven my friends are killed
    on freeways. Smoking dope perhaps, or a fifth of cheap liquor.
    They are about 17, tall & slim,
                                            usually wearing t-s
    or sloppy shirts;
                       except for Carson who was short & plump
    the class clown, with a flat-top haircut,
    who went through a guard rail in a red Mazda
    & fell 135 feet.
               A boy with the body of a
    perfect high school basketball star
    long torso no waist & the smile of a sardonic angel
    my name is John,
                         call me Johnny Slow Hand,
    driving
    with a large unadulterated jumbo of Coke
    Joan Crawford’s favourite drink.
    It makes me nauseous, she once said,
    between his long legs,
                                radio blaring Elton John
    that song about how the blues will always come back
    with brass in the background
                                         a lift from LA Express
    caught the tail of a grey Plymouth
    making a lazy turn no tail-lights onto a country side road
    & was then clipped by 3 cars & a truck
                                                        & flipped
    on the boulevard.
                 Saturday night
    the cars have to be cut open with an acetylene torch
    to lift their once perfect Adidas-shod bodies
    out of the wrecked car the way you would lift an egg out
    of a crushed bird’s nest.
                                  Mostly boys,
    the girl was an exception, & under the age of 29.
    Boys have the big A-stat. A for accident
    & A for a sort of hyper-tense anxiety
    backed up by a tumultuous review of hormones.
    Boys are expressive, sure, okay,
    & also aggressive drivers.
                 Jerzy Kosinski
    snuffed out with a plastic bag.
    Surely you weren’t trying to do anything like that?
    When you’re 17½ the world is a huge 6
/
5ths.
    6 / 5ths of a gigantic moon.
                                        Cut throat of the sun.
    Slashed wrists of the moon.
                                       You just put your foot
    on the gas a little too hard with one arm out the window
    & leaned back like a lazy greyhound on the comfortable
    seat.
       Cut throat of the sun.
                                       Slashed wrists of
    the moon.
              6 / 5ths of the dark night.
                Tobacco Heaven lays out
    the coloured highway signs from Thunder Bay to New Mexico.
    Life is almost always beautiful
                                           or at worst a bit of a down.
    The upside on the girl is that she wasn’t decapitated,
    unlike the Hispanic kid who was
    driving with his feet just to prove he could do it.
    Can you do it Jaime can you do it Jaime can you do it Jaime?
    Si,
    it is easy, I can/
                           do it.
    And if you lose control
    then the night road is wrong because
    it has imperfect highway seals under the asphalt
    some designs don’t breathe the way a highway
    should breathe. Some axles lock, & some don’t.
    Driving with your knees only is strictly forbidden
    while eating pizza
                           turning over a tape cassette
    or changing your shirt.
    The Buzzcocks should never have broken up
    when they were so so good. Some curves
    in the highway are actually a dark blue parallel.
    Some high schools have good basketball teams
    with cheerleaders & some don’t. All highway signs
    should be *illuminated*. Some windshields
    break more easily than others.

TAPIOCA
    Mrs. Matisse, I say, when I get her on the telephone, Is it ok if I