Voice Box

Her larynx hands had us stumped and staggered
the creature had stepped in front of our Cadillac

and stopped us cold even though we were
travelling at two hundred miles a millisecond

the top down once again
the radiator gulping and scrambling

abuela’s half-open robe
melting in the jagged wind

which carried rubble into shrubs
each ration of fog in a column

the creature looked at us
her musculature in a puddle

the flames of her fingernails
pointed at something

the foliate like a chorus
we gassed it

the empty tires went nowhere
a shoal apartment

appeared out of childhood
not now not now I heard on of my brothers say