When We Go Out Of State We Pretend To Be Old Buddies, Old Pals
Tomorrow the sun will come slowly, honey cream
yellow and soft. An old man will watch us, openly
stare, two boys in a Nevada diner
leaning towards each other, a touch
too close.
My ribs are a haystack nest. My ribs are a race
track on a summer night. Cigarette smoke
and sunflower seed shells conduct
the air under white lights. My ribs are
a guitar belly sweating, gasping.
My ribs are a pocket of prairie, thick
with crickets, the frenzy, singing to drive out
that rubberneck moon.
We ran from the highway. Past midnight.
Not too many cars on that road. We ran
till all we could hear was our sneakers
against the packed earth and our hearts
whooping, revving like engines
before the buck and scream. Everything
all gaseous stars stomping the night sky blue.
They cringe when we say we’re from Fresno
and I want to tell you about that night,
how we ran to the water,
left the day piled up on shore,
swam into the black, stars
looking down and stars looking up
from the deep. We of the cracked
feet, bruised hips, apricot rings
around our eyes. We swam
with the creatures who pop like embers
beneath the brackish. We swam with
gods. And I am, and you are,
the ones who released the shudder
from the back of our ribs, let it
out to roar with the sea.
Court Castaños is a poet from Fresno, CA. His work has appeared in a variety of journals including the San Joaquin Review, Boudin of the McNeese Review, Third Coast, and Crazyhorse literary magazine. In 2022, he received a Troubadour International Poetry Prize Commendation for Trans Man Buttons Up His Shirt (After Giving Away All His Dresses Invisibility At Garage Sale). Read more at courtcastanos.com.
Photo credit: Dimitris Vetsikas