Vulgar Remedies: Poems

Leaving Texas

5 Leaving Texas The gold frequencies of cicadas cinch up, then diffuse their pressed bruises—you hear them throb through the taxi’s cracked windows. So you leave town without the white oak swamp’s humid incense, without its blessing, without telling anyone. Sunday. You leave without a last banana milkshake with cinnamon, without the alligator’s bleached grin in the antique shop—the skull you’d saved for. Later, the girl next to you on the airplane nests a white rat in a red mesh bag in her lap. After the rattle of takeoff she unzips the rodent and moans, Lucky’s pierced his lip with his own tooth. You didn’t think you’d cry leaving the heat that slept beside you each night, the man and your shared apartment filled with his instruments, his bows strung with the hair of horses—their follicled nocturnal songs. You didn’t think you’d sob once but you can’t watch the rat’s lip shiver its loose pink eyelet. You excuse yourself, move through the yellow footlights to the slim bathroom where the water in the steel bowl swirls. It’s the bluest you’ve seen in years. ...