Before the Traffic Light Flipped

by Amanda Oaks

​You & I,
close to
the edge
of Texarkana
pondered the
sharpness of
borders up close
& how the dots
on the map we had
looked nothing like the
ones they taught us about in
school. The journey had always
been in the in-betweens linking
heartbeats. Hence the next rest stop
coming up the coast when we stopped off
to bury the pliers I had used for years
to pry lines like these ones out of my
bones. Saying over & over again a
small prayer we pulled out of a
breath one night on the back
of a pedicab in the gaslight
district just days before
Mother Earth's heart
broke & bled all over
New Orleans' floor.
"We'll live amid
  now & then barely
  coming up for air even
  when, we'll live amid now
  & then barely coming up for
  air even when, we'll live..."



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