when we sat in the back of missy’s astro van and watched the buffalo
fall into potholes along I-68, sucked on dum dums
from the bank, and played five-finger-fillet on a history textbook.
we smelled like what was left of our dads:
baths of drakkar noir, suicidal ideation, and diabetes
slick like turtleback on juicy fruit breath.
we called each other shotgun and accidentally touched hands
beneath the fold-down cupholder. the powers that be
pushed a goldfinch inside the radiator valve.
good grief, he sniffed out the fruit of me, when i was nothing
but a thousand suns blown out of a hot-wired chest.
after missy taught me how to pump gas at the exxon station,
she drove us to a run of water named after my great great grandad
and let us play rock-skip while she divorced her husband
over the phone. instead, we swallowed chainsaws and choked on the air
she breathed, as the super wolf blood moon ate us both up real good.
i walked with him into the stomach of a sewer tunnel attached
to a blood bloated prairie and then walked out stinking rotten of bone-
dry lips and dropped zippers, leaving behind a casket
of fresh smoke eating the pearl of an asshole clean out.
i faked a bee sting just to get out of saying goodbye properly.
then, back at aunt carolyn’s, during the grace before dinner,
mamaw unwrapped me an unmarked butterscotch candy
slowly, afraid i’d make far too much noise with my hands.