Talk Vomit

By Leia K. Bradley

We talked about Loretta and Hank and football and the death drive;
how we used to go make love in the cemetery, how you drove all night to pick me up
three states over. The interstate was always the home we loved in longest.
There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you
and so I did some terrible things.

What of all the things you said we could be? Your banjo case,
my typewriter, always in the trunk. We never could stop long enough
to make our machines churn out beautiful notions. We saved the sappy
for the backseat, on the side road, and were lucky
if any motels. You said I was the sound of neon,
bright and buzzing in the dark. I said you were the sound
of the opening, closing glovebox
fit with a pistol, and a polaroid of me, lewd in cellophane
you kept as your bible bookmark. I had added red nail polish to your cupholder,
did my toes on the road. That summer we laid low
on the top of your hood by the lake, eating pork rinds and each other. My god,

the arson you cause in my middle, that slow burning murder
of all my morals. I had the feeling of being right
in the middle of the thing, smack dab center, and knowing
there had to be an end. Madness to mayhem and back again—Christ,
how we both wanted the other to save us. Where would I go, without you,
knowing it was so easy for you
to take a hard left? Centripetal force like a cruel joke of nothing, not a one
to hold on to but
your bare throat, singing old country, 3 am to anywhere
just the radio and the road. Perhaps
I’m too afraid to remember
if I ever loved anyone else. Knowing
nothing would hold its own gravity, centerfold to your center, knowing nothing
could hold me like this.