While parked outside a liquor store

along the highway winding through

the Canadian Rockies.  We’d stopped

to pick out a bottle of wine,

anticipating romance in the hotel that night.

 

But the liquor store was closed,

and I’d locked the keys in the truck,

my wallet on the seat beside your purse and phone.

 

We stood on the empty street, feeling daylight

fade, a chill dropping

from the snow-covered peaks.  Our hotel

still a couple hour’s drive beyond us.

 

Eventually I would pry a narrow window

in back of the cab.  You would squeeze through,

tearing your shorts and scraping your shins.

In the dark, a wrong turn would mislead us

miles out of our way, and we’d arrive blurry-eyed,

stupefied to discover our hotel

had no vacancy and no record of our reservation.

 

Through hard times and wayward places,

I fell in love with you again

in a wayside where we huddled

in the truck, dozing, waking fitfully

to eighteen-wheelers jake breaking on the pass,

you keeping one hand or both in mine all night long.