Aubade in a Southern College Town

In this town I wake up
to the guy downstairs roaring profanities
in a volume that tears through 
the cheap walls, wake up harder 
at breakfast when someone’s subwoofer 
blasts a mild form of death in my chest. 

My crusty eyes adjust to window-light, gaze at the blue atlas cedar
alone in a lawn & I notice its silverblue arm extended, beckoning me,
so I leave my four walls, press an ear against the undulating mouth
in its bark: listen to how I’ve been made specimen on this land, learned 
to tolerate drought. Goddamn at least they know to give me space. 

What returns you to a place like this? What returns you to places 
where your name twists & wilts on withered white tongues, where 
you’ve read exotic too many times & just this morning on the back 
of an off-brand sriracha bottle. Where Shalini turns to Suzie & 
translates to I don’t give a damn about you, but your food is nice. 

In a town like this, my name 
can no longer mean modest so I imagine 
undressing myself, expressing myself 
like the cedar’s atlas of branches,
wish a subwoofer could teach me 
where in this voice to put more bass.