Volvo V60 on cruise control. He kills the engine
heavy-hands the wheel & punches the park brake.
The rib around his heart splinters inward, hate-made
puncture wound. Out slur words, sloughing over
tinted glass & chipped paint. No tourniquet’d ever be tight enough
to staunch this onslaught of blood sweat &
Vitriol. DY K E S leaks from the lane.
I tell her it’s often like this, they’re in so deep here
when a bitter seed is sewn, it’s set to be perennial. Hereditary
unhappiness, I call it, because not knowing isn’t half this pissed.
We split at the ribs anyhow, laugh so hard we can’t get a breath
in to cry. Grit won’t concede to grit. It’s a cockfight
& really, I pity him. I’m carved from the rib of the woods, too.
When you whittle us down we’re all like this:
Moxie, rough-hewn words, stubborn northern weeds in our ways.
White-hot. So stuck, the closest thing to something new
is cussing in my face.