Category: Cost of Living—July 2026

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Another summer of hushing and humming. 
The locusts are buzzing and the young lovers’ legs knot 
like the nylon nets of nearby fishermen. They’re caught up 
to their waists, kiss-high on the Guadalupe River bank 

and wrapped in the orange end of day. But the sun still 
burns mid-day between them, to the gloss bead at the tip 
of the glass thermometer. She skims her lips, quick past 
the rough threadbare of his June promises, like when he told her 

she was the only one, all the way down 
the soft pull of her neck, to her bright Polaris 
collar bone, that stuck out and outlined her need 
for wings. And there was flight. 

That night brought a moon, round as a baby, 
with a reality that didn’t pay enough to finish 
college, or for health insurance, or for a wedding ring 
with a blushing diamond, able to rest, center of its house. 

Life starts a sticky 98.6℉ here, with limited exceptions. 
Hushing, humming, she rocks and rubs her stomach, a hymn sung
rising with the weeping mist of Black women
on the cold shoulders of the river, down home.

What’s going on? Marvin Gaye, heavy on the ears in 2026, heavy 
legs in the mud, soaked by high water. They can’t cross state lines 
for Mifepristone. Finger up to her cupid’s bow. The misery of what 
happens at home, really does stay at home, close to the ribs. Darling, 

hush. He rubs her legs to help her circulation, she’s a humming 
incubator and she can’t afford this, if she can survive this. Free 
the trapped fish in her throat, her clavicle pools wet in the sweat 
of her final nine months, outlining her need. 

^{Texas Black maternal morbidity rates remain high regardless of the education or income level of the mother. Research shows that this disparity for Black women increases by age and persists across education and income levels. As of 2023, Black people are more than three times as likely as white people to experience a pregnancy-related death.}

The cost of anything
starts to show.

The floating
lanterns in Chang Mai
landing.

My wedding dress
smothered three
grasshoppers in tulle.

Then there was
the talismanic dandelion
obligate among the snow
as if it had the right.

Nothing where
it was supposed to be.

My mother’s mind
no longer holding
onto the years.

And so I fashioned
myself unmotherable
in preparation.

Cried to find that
even the sun
is a bell.

Tolling through
years to try
and announce
a close.

The tungsten
flare of progress
contours
the ephemeral
fuckery of it all.

These first thirty
years have been
a series
of collecting

all the things
I am in no way
prepared to lose.

Once on an
interstate
late at night

_____a loveseat

thrown from
a truck bed
into traffic.

The swerve
so immaculate
I somehow knew

it was my last
close call.