the track tonight, burnt asphalt and heat. the stands, rickety and full
with ghosts of tomorrow’s morning spectators. you and me,
faces pressed against the metal fence, squares of metal leaving grids on our hands.

if you squint you can almost see the wall of champions,
the carbon fibre smoking in the corner with its pack
of fellow rejects. if you passed me a stick right now i’d think about lighting up

for sheer aesthetic. i tell you Mazepin will spin out on the first lap tomorrow
and you scoff. tomorrow morning, you scream in horror
when i’m right. i can’t drive for shit, i tell you

but even i could do what he does. you’re trying to tell me
that i can’t build a poem off of roasting a rich Russian fuckboy
who had his father buy him an F1 drive but

to channel Trudeau, watch me, bitch. i always think of you
even when i don’t mean to. even here, waiting for my lungs to
expand, i want to picture someone else standing next to me and all i see

is you. neither of us have cable anymore so we sneak to the track
in our dreams Saturday night and pirate Sky Sports F1 Sunday morning.
the stream is behind the actual race by nearly a minute so we pinky promise

not to go on Twitter and spoil it for each other. tonight, hidden amidst the detritus
of some other life, some other race, i am thinking about how
love may be the choice to live in mutual ignorance.

June Lin is a young poet. She loves practical fruits, like clementines and bananas.