Leaving Rhode Island: Austin

We smoke outside a restaurant in Austin

We talk about Rhode Island

The letters

How it’s okay to come home now

There’s an exile in our group

A girl, named something great—

Wish I could remember it now

I want to say Carlotta

But that doesn’t seem right

But it could be

Who knows?

We kick off our shoes

Even though technically

We’re still guests of the establishment

And we rip the holes a little wider

In our jeans

We can’t stop fixing ourselves

By messing ourselves up

I pick at my salad

I fix my hair

I laugh at a joke I don’t find funny

I look at Carlotta

At Maybe Carlotta

Allegedly Carlotta

And I look back down at my salad

She excuses herself to use the lady’s room

And a friend of mine says—

‘Go with her, you idiot’

So I do

In the bathroom, she licks my ear

That’s it, just my ear

Sorry, she says

I have a thing about ears

‘Just ears,’ I ask

And she laughs at me

She tells me she thinks she’s going to go back to Rhode Island

‘But you just said—‘

‘I know what I said,’ she says

‘But the truth is I’m chickenshit’

I ask her what it is she’s chickenshit about

But she just shakes her head

And looks in the mirror

Past me, past herself even

‘I’ve been on vacation,’ she says

‘I still have things to take care of back home’

I have stuff too

I’ve got two dads who are slowly pulling away from each other

And I’m the glue that usually holds them together

Or the guy with both arms attached to a pair of wild horses

Holding they don’t tear him in two

Carlotta gives my ear another kiss

And then leaves the bathroom

And, also, the restaurant

But she does leave a ten on the table

On her way out

‘Jesus, man’ my friend says

‘What did you do to her?’

I could have told her I was chickenshit too

Of not going back

But I’m even more chickenshit about…

About what’s back there waiting for me

Since, kids are good at being glue

But the older you get, well—

The glue dries out

Here I am in Austin

Putting holes in my jeans

Spots on my lungs

Nothing in my stomach

Trying to see how long it’ll be

Before I fall into pieces

Like a scarecrow, you know?

When I left, I felt like a bunch of clothes

With bones and stuffing

All tied together with string

And over the years, I tied that string pretty tight

But now?

A letter arrives and says—Go home

And suddenly I can feel the string start to…unravel

People are like that sometimes, you know?

No matter how put together they are

It takes almost nothing

To pull them apart