elfie

You said you had to get out of the house.
I put you in the passenger seat and
bummed you as many smokes as you needed.
When we reached the interstate, you warned me,
“Don’t let this freak you out.” Face to the wind,
you screamed out all the air in your lungs, and
the cigarette smoke, and I was quiet.
Unfamiliar sounds came out of your mouth
like laughing, twisted; like the way you cry
and are brought to your knees by a punch line.
It made me nauseous. I pulled over so you
could take a piss.

One night that summer, you
sat on the trunk of my car and pressed the
lit end of your cigar into the skin
just above your left knee. The air was damp
and smelled like maduro smoke and singed hair.

You were different before the hurricane.
The water rose in the gutters and you
stayed anyway.

On the fourth of July
you took up the cans one last time and wrote
NO GODS, NO BORDERS, NO FLAGS, NO MASTERS
on a piece of plywood in the driveway.
We rigged watermelons with explosives
and chased each other down the cul-de-sac.
The pear tree in the front yard left pigeon-
feather-white blossoms all over the place.