stars

if there were stars that night
i did not see them

what i saw was vinyl upholstery
the open mouth of the bottle
robbie’s face close in the muggy darkness of the back seat
speeding white headlights
green exit signs punctuating the night

what i saw was hollywood approaching
a kind of teenage freedom
five girls staggering down sunset full of blackberry brandy
and southern comfort
and boys, boys with cars, boys who procured bottles
by the fifth

this was after sonia moved to las vegas for a year and came back shavonne
but before the curtain of my innocence fell
before holly left forever
before i wrecked my rabbit and my spleen on olsen road
before rich strung himself up in his dark apartment
before david stepped off the freeway overpass

it was just a night like other nights
like the night z came up from hollywood
in his rock and roll leather
to climb the suburban foothills with
five high school girls
all of us coming home full of cactus needles
taking turns in the shower
with beer and tweezers

this was before the string of bad boyfriends
before i went to rob’s dorm room with my last few lines of cocaine
before i first tasted raw oysters on a date in la jolla
before my girlfriends started asking me to have threesomes
before my grandmother died, and then my father, and then my other grandmother
before the lead-weight jobs
before the clomid, the injections, the cyst, the miscarriage

what i remember is the rush of darkness
the hum of the road
the thuh-thuh of reflectors under tires
the podlike feeling of riding fast in that car
parentless, invincible, free

if there were stars that night
i did not see them