Marie’s car rolls over railroad tracks like
pit bulls slobber, gnash nails between their teeth.
Her vinyl seat clings to my sweat-slick thighs,
press fresh and scald my bright lower back—
Florida turns her ebony dash white-hot
We scream down Emerson at 1:47pm
to get pomegranate pucker-up refreshers
that make our fingers stick together. She wails
Ice Spice lyrics until her voice breaks
into citrine whines and a rose gold rasp.
It’s time to roll the windows down, now, bitch.
Humidity roars in through the sunroof,
to lift our baby hair closer to the sky
and caramelize our green apple skin.
I grab for the handle hanging above the open air,
clutch so tight my knuckles turn familiar white.
We blow through the stop sign before the bridge.
I shriek: a hubba bubba bubble popping,
oozing slimy from my chapped mouth—
The gaping maw of the St Johns River
blurs past me in a kaleidoscope of
crashing symbol waves and oily torn edges.
Pop pumps through her speakers and
Marie laughs: hand me my sunglasses,
crispy, mangled plastic frying smokey on the dash.
I relax my death grip on the handle
to snatch them up—she laughs harder as I
bop-bop-bop them, hand-to-hand, hot potato,
before she takes pity and leans across my body,
knobby elbows digging into my brittle ribs,
nothing but knees on her daisy steering wheel
as she scoops them into vanilla coconut palms;
her cheeks are a gentle perch, breeze cool.
The Camaro whips in front at warp speed.
Seatbelt digs into fragile neck folds, bruising,
her hands struggle for the wheel,
lay on the horn so hard it maracas my bones.
Rie! Please slow down- I can’t-
She slams on the brakes.
She slams on the brakes for me
so the metal groans and I lurch forward
into her hand splayed across my stomach, ready.
My chest heaves in her palm, breath wheezing,
gasping, melting into hiccup laughter
that she echoes, louder, until it mixes together
into a two-part harmony monster and
I can’t tell where my skin ends and hers begins.
Abbey Griffin (she/her) is a writer in Northeast Florida currently attending Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She is super excited to be attending Sarah Lawrence College in New York this fall. What the Living Do by Marie Howe is the book that sparked her love for poetry, and inspired her to devote her life to writing. Her poems have been published in Elan Literary Magazine two years in a row. She loves duck stuffed animals, and hopes that everyone finds their own unique understanding and love of the arts.