You brought home from college that boy with the long 
hair and beard who was high day to night, cooler than cool,

jamming to Layla on the FM in his avocado green Fiat,
driving back from Lexington rolling joints while steering

with his knees: the road rushing past the little window
in back where I sit with Ace, the coal black lab, growing

older than my twelve years with each mellow mile we make,
taking our time because that’s what we have coming

out of our pockets, time and a couple of dime bags scored
from his friend who grows the weed on an unmapped

plot of state forest land. When you end it with him 
it breaks my heart. Where he is now, anyone’s guess,

but he lives on in the wind-borne scent from a group of teens
in the mall parking lot smoking a j and laughing,

in burning engine oil and the slow drift over hump-backed hills, 
in sly grins and shared secrets, in glorious rock ’n roll.