horatio watches the goblet empty in the form of a black pontiac grand prix going fifty in a twenty-five
by marie sayle
horatio is kneeling on pebbled concrete,
still scrabbling for the goblet
hamlet tipped over,
unable to believe that he would
leave her behind,
but it is only so simple
in her head.
in reality, horatio is astride
a bicycle that she isn’t quite tall enough for,
watching the exhaust of her
big brother’s car fade
as he takes off full-speed
from the place they both grew up.
the electric guitar she could always handle a little better than him
is tucked into his backseat,
along with the cassettes she grew up on
and the bin of legos that were the only thing
they could ever agree on.
the prince of denmark is getting the fuck out,
and horatio is left with two more years of high school
and no flannel-clad stoner to hide behind.
she tries her best to drain the dregs
of whatever let her brother
leave this behind,
lapping up what’s left
on the pavement,
but if there was a final secret,
he took it with him.
the record collection that wouldn’t fit in his car
takes up residence in her bedroom (his old bedroom),
and she starts at a new school where no one knows her
and no one knows
she used to be the sidekick of
the fucking prince.
his johnny cash shirt with the sleeves cut off
becomes a staple of her wardrobe,
and none of her new friends have ever seen it
on a frame other than hers.
they have no idea what it looks like
on some skinny cis boy with greasy hair and
the self-assuredness horatio was always
tripping over her feet trying to catch.
now horatio stands alone.
she’s the first one to go out and get tattoos on her 18th,
and the girls in the grade under her all follow.
she knows everything there is to know about
the postal service,
and for some reason
she always gets a better deal at pawn shops.
she knows where to find people and
how to scrape by,
how to get out of anything by the skin of her teeth.
she walks like she has experience she doesn’t,
and navigates places she’s never been
with confidence that no one can find the source of.
to her new friends
she is the prince,
the one bringing the drinks
and stoking the bonfire,
the one whose favorite sentence is
“you don’t know? oh, i’ll show you how.”
but despite all this,
even if no one else ever knows,
horatio will always be the one who came after hamlet
and watched him end his story in this dusty town,
lemonheads and cigarettes and arizona green tea
speeding down I-94 toward real life,
with a little sister in the rearview
who wasn’t quite ready to go to her first concert alone
and didn’t realize until the wine was sinking into the dirt.
RRCC 