Knox, and Breakfast Sundaes
art by Virgil Suárez
by Taylor Sykes
Knox
We take Route 231 that day to a nowhere town an hour away. We’d heard it was something to do in
the summer when there was nothing to do in the summer. She says, “I don’t think I’ll do it but I’ll
watch you.” And I say, “You better get this shit on tape. I want a record of my recklessness.” Just
another corn town on a yawn of flat road where country kids go when they’re bored. Go looking for
a gravel road near a bridge where no trains pass. Rusted red metal heap, hanging gotta be 30 feet above
that summertime-sparkling water. And I’m up there in my clothes wishing I were unclothed. Red cage
above, could I climb, no-name creek below. Wanting to know how deep that summertime water goes.
Bare feet stinging on steel or whatever ghost holds this structure together. Heave my summertime
body on the edge of that heap. Ready to leap headlong into that nowhere creek. “Don’t do it!” she
shouts from below though I can hardly hear, it’s like there’s a train coming or she took 231 home
without me, or it’s like I want her gone. “Here I go!” I shout and then I’m the one who’s gone.
Breakfast Sundaes
Breakfast sundaes are wildly underrated. Cookies and cream, microwave fudge, the works. We eat our
cherries first. Bury our spoons in the yard and hope they grow back stronger. She says, “Tell me about
the dream where our bodies were tangled in poison ivy.” We turn on music that itches. The old
speakers when they scratch. Topless in our hammocks slurping pink froth from a straw till our tits
burn. Pour oil on our palms because we do not fear our bodies yet. We spread our mess around. Our
stomachs spill over when we bend and burp. Two plastic spoons in the dirt. Swallow slips of glass and
firecracker trash and wonder why our skin boils with red and white pus. Sour dandelions tango
between our teeth, sprout green fibers from our tongues. In this way we remake romance. Crabgrass
clutches at our toes to pull us back where we came from. An albino snake swirls from her ankle to
mine. In the dream, we are not our bodies but the vines that poison them. We grow over ourselves.
The morning sun light as whipped cream. The stink of milk in our throats.
Taylor Sykes’s writing has appeared in So to Speak, The Masters Review, Slash Magazine, NPR’s All Things Considered, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the James Hurst Prize for Fiction and a 35 in 35 Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. Originally from northwest Indiana, she has an MFA in fiction from North Carolina State University and teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina Asheville.
Instagram @taylorsuperstar
Virgil Suárez was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1962. At the age of twelve he arrived in the United States. He received an MFA from Louisiana State University in 1987. He is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently 90 MILES: SELECTED AND NEW, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. His work has appeared in a multitude of magazines and journals internationally. His 10th volume of poetry, THE PAINTED BUNTING’S LAST MOLT, was be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Spring of 2020. He is also the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant and an Individual Artist Grant from the State of Florida and a Latino Book Prize.
