Driving to Montreal

By Adam Gibson ©

we drove to Montreal

in the spring of 1995

and on that drive

frost-mist held the trees still

while the sky could not be faulted

for its unbroken purity of low grey;

we were so young and it

seems so long ago

but it feels like last week too

and we didn't feel young at the time.

and the whole trip was organised,

petrol stops and meals pre-planned,

and the three of us drove,

me in the backseat,

up through Canada

while winter wasn't so much breaking

as seeping away into muddy brown

and lost watches and coins and cars and money

were appearing from the melting snow

all soggy and white and not-quite-right.

big North American cars allow big North American people

the big North American luxuries of spreading wide,

splaying their rumps and shanks across a vast expanse.

an alternative benefit is the person in the back passenger seat

can grasp the hand of the person in the front passenger seat

without the driver having a clue.

and so on we drove like that,

a betrayal so sweet you

could hardly criticise it,

could you?