The Cabriolet

We leave the party at two or three

You hitch a lift in my Cabriolet

And though it's misty I'm just too tired or too lazy to close the soft top

And I don't stop you when you curl your body, cold in your little black mini

And hold against me

All night I've been flirting with everyone except you

How you explain my failure to find you as attractive as everyone else seems to I just don t know

But there's wind in our hair and drink in our systems

Breaking the ordinary inhibitions

And on the cassette some Louisiana Creole music

And you decide you want a cigarette

And though it only takes a second to demonstrate the gadget in the dash

I miss the black and white chevrons of the steep bend warning

And there's the sound of something smashing

Then nothing beneath the tyres of the Cabriolet

In the sudden shock of silence, with the morning star above you

Lying bizarre in the wreck of my car

Maybe I'm drunk or hallucinating

Maybe this isn't happening

Maybe you aren't lying there with tears in your little party dress

At the waist and the breast

Because in real life I was never this aroused by you

I was never this impressed

Your face unharmed, unstained but drained pale

Is suddenly more strange and beautiful than anything I've ever seen or ever will

Bathed in the light of the morning star I see someone

I never took the trouble to know, someone

I only now begin to feel I could love or make love to

I'm moved and aroused to see you in this strange new way

In the starlight filtering through the myriad fragments

Of the freshly shattered windscreen of the Cabriolet

In the sudden shock of silence, with the morning star above you

Lying bizarre in the wreck of my car

I love you