He’d drive us out into the desert
and we’d hike through that dirt and brush,
rocks wrapped by lichen, until he’d say, This is good.
Then we’d shoot coyotes. Shoot them all day.
Smoke her, he’d say, when the wind calmed.
Most were clean shots. Then, at nightfall, following
the two-track back home, shotguns held half out of the window
until rabbits straightened in the headlights
and we’d hit the brakes and shoot them too.
When he would have me drive, he’d say
he couldn’t even hear the engine, that I wasn’t
going fast enough. And when he taught me
about cough syrup—how Tussionex goes with Sunkist
and Roxicet goes with Sprite—he’d say the same thing.
As I write these sentences now, write these phrases
my brother still uses, quick and declarative,
and these nouns, shotgun and coyote and engine,
capitalize each brand name, I keep thinking
that they’ll open and become more than a story,
or less, like a smooth, dark lid closing over the sun. ◆
Homepage Image: Aisen Caro Chacin, ScentRhythm, Electronics, acrylic, fiberglass, lithium, 2012, from Gulf Coast Summer/Fall 2024, Issue 36.2
