written By
when I swerved to avoid the roadkill
(a fox? maybe a young coyote?)
on that nameless landlocked highway
we were drinking different sodas
she was probably talking about how
it’s ingrained in people’s minds to like summer
& how when she was younger
she’d snort Adderall on the neighbors’ veranda
while reading their National Geographics
trying to forget the recurring dream
in which David Attenborough
committed seppuku for our sins
or the other one where her elderly chihuahua
the one with colitis
got snatched by a cartoonish mongoose
whose bowl-cut hairstyle reminded her
of a long-dead child star from the 90s
who once touched her cousin
after an autograph signing
but now we’ve made it to the coast
to the seagull-shit parking lot beside the ocean
she’s crab-walking into the riptide
& I’m imagining what happens if I stay in the car
take our dirty laundry from the back seat
build something like a nest
pretend to give up when actually
I miss her scent
even as it still hangs there
like an air freshener
in the shape of an obese chipmunk
wearing a pirate hat
flapping insanely under the rear-view mirror
& chanting
“no soda will ever be our soda”
