Me (Moth)

by Amber McBride

I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing To cross back. I’m set On something vast. —“Crossing,” from The Tradition by Jericho Brown

Names outgrow you, like a garden left untended; they don’t disappear with the science that keeps our bodies alive. Jesus is still Jesus, alive, dead & resurrected— & if we forget, headstones remind us that names slouch on without bodies.

Two summers ago our car broke in half like a candy bar on the freeway & we all spilled onto the pavement as crumbled as sticky caramel-peanut filling.

I’ve always been a passing breeze, felt but never seen unless I was dancing.

It’s fine, I don’t mind being nothing to no one, unrooted on every soil my feet trespass on.

I said, My gray grandfather says our skin is rich like the lands my ancestors came from.

The suburbs don’t sound like anything. They are just bland—unseasoned. As tasteless as frozen toast.

They don’t dance so much as gyrate off beat. I’d say twerk, but you have to have an ass to twerk, you have to have rhythm to twerk.

Transverse orientation means to follow the angle of the moon.

We light candles because they are lighthouses for the spirits of our ancestors to come sit with us. We give offerings out of respect.

Who will answer for the sin of it being easy to get lost when so many orbs mirage the illusion of brightness?

Maybe if I didn’t gorge myself on life, there would have been some left in the car for Mom & Dad & Zachary.

First position: It’s not your fault you lived. Second position: Until you are alone. Third position: Fault lines multiply. Fourth position: So you sacrifice. Fifth position: For accidently living, for being so filled with life, death did not recognize you.

TEXT SANI SENDS BACK Then why do I feel like the dust of your name is buried in my bones? TEXT I SEND SANI Dramatic. Five finger grass. Maybe?

I wrap us tight on the floor in my blanket, rocking him back & forth, not sure how I got here with this beautiful, sharp-edged boy whose voice is dipped in spirit & dust, who smells like rain & dirt. & me (Moth) a spark that won’t unlight— a spark that wants to be a wildfire— to ignite.

whisper “Summer Song”: I want to suffocate your sadness, I want to run away with you. Please run away with me. He nods & nods & nods.

Because he (Sani) needs to live & leave & I think I might, possibly, need the same thing because I don’t belong anywhere anymore.

Wormwood: to protect the car, keep it in the palm of the ancestors’ hands. Ginger root: for adventure & freedom.

You (Moth) will have to stretch your soul like an endless story to find your way. —Gray-Bearded Grandfather (Rootworker)

Steps in new directions are the hardest to take & it is hard to be sure if Sani is the moon or just a dumb lightbulb.

The best way to get to know someone, to get beneath their skin & into the bone, is to tell a story & offer music. A story explains who you want to be; the other shows who you are.

Monticello Plantation, Charlottesville, Virginia: Where Thomas Jefferson committed several sins; we go to stomp on hateful plantation ground.

Natural Bridge, Virginia: A hill holds hands with another hill & we can softly walk across the length of their arms. Ghost Town in the Sky, Maggie Valley, North Carolina: Abandoned amusement park, because each road trip requires an abandoned place where weeds choke everything, where ghosts might linger.

The Bluebird Cafe, Nashville, Tennessee: Sani likes the food; I like the memories. Fort Smith National Historic Site, Arkansas: Crossroads of the Trail of Tears. Pinnacle Mountain State Park, Arkansas: To swim with the moon. Stafford Air & Space Museum, Weatherford, Oklahoma: To investigate the vastness of the cosmos.

We are both laughing so hard we cry & cry & feel & live.

What’s wrong with remembering too much? His father crosses his weathered arms. You forget why the breeze is a miracle & why the stars are a gift.

My spirit has been looped with Sani’s. & I don’t know how to unstitch.

I don’t know how to unravel this magic.