Go down to the Guadalupe—a glossy, soft river swirled with juniper and robin’s egg. It’s lavish here. It’s a Glacier Freeze Gatorade from the back of a pickup truck. Live oak filtered light dapples the surface like a nimble, newborn fawn. It quenches thirst. There’s an agedness, a discernment that will not be disrupted by the dipping of your toes. The water saunters on, remaking itself in spite of you. Suckle and settle in. You came here once in April, with the other grown children dressed in violets and infant blues, with premature tans and scraped knees from when y’all crawled around looking for grasshoppers under the cyprus trees with grand, twisted roots—an ancestral umbilical cord. You felt freshly born. And your mother said I wish. And you said I want.

These words sit heavy, a hazy limoncello on your collar bones, wrapped in wild red columbine and soaked with the sweet spit of lovers that leave come summer. It sits so heavy you can hardly swallow. You long for both the living and the dead. In time, this longing will transfigure you into the honey-glow florescence of the evening, the cantaloupe-colored gleam stretching downstream. Then, you will wisely say: I understand, some.

But now you are at the river still waiting for y’alls rage to soften, waiting for a bite on the line. The white dog runs west but returns when called. The brown dog admonishes her with a nip at her heel. A couple cans of beer are opened, drank, and disposed of. Y’all bide your time. You crack a few jokes. The afternoon gently folds you into slow lusciousness, juicy as sweet cherries freshly washed with water droplets draping down, ripe for sucking and spitting. You lift your chin up to latch on. Lips open in anticipation towards the cool, cotton soft sky. You sit by your sober sister, watch her win at dice. Your brothers toss a baseball. Your mother films it on her phone to watch later over wine and, perhaps, righteously weep. An understanding hovers over the waterfront: if you move too quickly, you will shatter.

Like your mother yesterday evening as she stood across from you, lit by festive lights, her eyes shining feral and full of fear. She moved recklessly among the tentative dancers, drawing attention. When she realized that she had overstepped her bounds, she retreated to the courtyard where she seemed so young, so small with her thin limbs cloaked in animal terror, quivering: I am unsafe. Over tequila, she tells you that god might not be as good as she thought and wonders what kind of hope she can hold onto, so she sneaks off to sleep in the cemetery in the pastel light of the spearmint setting sun. She asks to be left alone. She wants to dance however she likes now that nothing tethers her, so you cannot argue with her. Then at the end of the night, she crumbles to a climax in the flickering of cheap fireworks, held by the arms of your brother as she begs you to make it all go away.
You say, I’m here.
And she says, I want to go home.

When y’all drive through the hill country, way over the speed limit, with the windows rolled down and the sky shining sherbet pink like carnations in the front garden at the old family property, your mother says this song doesn't make me sad, which seems like a confession, so you bless her and forgive her. You wonder if that midwestern man will join you out here next time in this hill country on the back porch by the dog water with a Lonestar in hand, arranging fishing rods with a seriousness that enchants you and makes you say I want to make a baby, and he says ok. He kisses you gently, reels you in on the right side of the couch by his girlfriend’s hair clips that he says not to worry about. You transfigure into orange blossoms in his chokehold. You cannot breathe.

And as you drive back, your mother says tell me about the boy. And you say he’s elegant. Y’all whip around a bend, lift airborne, return to the asphalt, and the wind whips your hair back so you can see trees turn blurry underwater. Your face feels so cool, so crisp. You’re wet. Things continue to transform. Is he clean? Your dad was so clean.

Back in the Midwest, all is silence smeared strawberry red with seeds left in your teeth. River water still stains your skin indigo, tints your blonde hair lime that you wrangle and pull back. Ripened, sweet peach sorrow streams from your orphaned cunt. In time, in slow, lavender movements, a largemouth bass swims in lush amniotic fluid flowing from your father’s grave. It’s heavenly and hell-like. You’re all alone. The midwestern man crumbles into white powder on the counter. His clammy hands hold yours; his cerulean eyes open wide, saying: I want to feel nothing. To you, this is unintelligible. You recall him speaking fondly of her desert dryness. Her aridity that now lures him into a granular existence, a coma you cannot comprehend. The teething is complete. I hate you. I hate you too. You see him walking with her on the way to the train.

Every song makes you sad. That’s your confession.

Go down to the Guadalupe where you lock eyes with the fish on a hook. It's a perch, a slang-named, common subspecies you’ll use to catch catfish later. The fish stares back at you. He breathes peacefully, so proud that one would think he bit the bait on purpose, saying: I understand that things end. He waits for you to respond, so you say: I am sorry about all this. I’m trying to fix a situation. His calm breath continues, unphased by imminent asphyxiation. Hunger intertwines with intimacy in the slow slaughter of one creature by another. You run your scared fingers over the sunflower-flavored gills. You feel the air flow to and fro. You feel his glistening, sentient existence. The fish forgives you. Mid-spring warmth streams speechless into the plywood dock, blooming back up to your calloused heels. Heat is a balm—a birth that happens again and again. It’s a highway-side bluebonnet that blossomed late. You see it as you speed past with your mother’s heavy foot on the gas. This is the remnant: a tart, tangerine sensation in your skin only the living can enjoy.

You go on speaking: Someone else was supposed to be here. Everything got all mixed up.

This is the spring of several small iconoclasms. You get sober. You learn to stay silent.