sandals stomp
over scattered skittles
& seagulls encircle us
the gathered tides
implore us to
pick a color
within these waves
reflecting
a million skies
parachutes will glide
us downward
to the sand
and blue rises
so slow
we never fully meet
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Fall 2016)
was sad. The bathroom garbage bin
was empty except for a milky bag,
a milky bag. I spent a few days
staring at walls that lacked art, clocks,
plaques– wayward whites. I searched
the swinging ceiling fan for meaning,
its light hanging even as the nightmares
swirled and buoyed my sleep. On that
first midnight, I received an email
from Ema to confirm our petals had withered.
Desiccate yet still green somehow I slept
and slept and slept not anxious for the sun’s
return or its return to me, not that it did
for a while. I looked for this midnight whisper
days later to question again our phantoms,
sprinting through Gmail plains of text, but no,
this was a phantom, too. I whispered e-m-a with
my fingers into the search thus yielded darlings,
xoxo starlings and chains that floated from the
screen’s waterfall out into eternity, tethered
to the runoff running to that unknown place
where even phantoms go to die.
(originally published in Memoryhouse Magazine, spring 2016)
Did you know what you were going to get, strolling
through the supermarket handpicking chocolates,
deciding between pecan bon bons, truffles,
and white chocolate shells filled with fudge?
We did not yet know the salt of incandescence,
your caramel smile on the roof of my mouth,
blind with each other’s taste, the lavender
some sickly rose blooming.
We melted together in the sun not worrying
about how our distinct tastes would smelt and swirl
around in our greedy mouths how our tongues flicked
and explored until we were almost satisfied but
every good thing melts the way autumn crumples
at the peak of its most swirling sweetness.
(originally published in bluepepper, 2016)
Often I find myself wanting to move
from the dust like a lost, small dog,
fur a summertime shackle.
Those dark winter days
we were our own light.
Lapped the water in from a trough.
We didn’t have to dip (not deeply)
and we’d share our sips freely.
Then Valentine’s Day
came and went.
Meanwhile we sat alone
at our computers,
waiting to press send.
(originally published in The Legendary)
Sometimes I say what I don’t mean.
There is an algorithm which can make me forget;
the others remind me to remember.
Your action has been undone. As if my actions
needed a separate undoing– I did not expect you,
with your raven hair, to perch our thousand
miles, thousand days to bottle time
and cast to sea, a folded note to be read
by a stranger at shore. Here, I am a knot
bound to be undone, tethered to a battered shoe,
and in the sprint, wind coarsens your hair.
In the cold we move closer and closer until the breathing
is stale and fogs my car’s windows, the outside world
turned gray. Confusing a fluorescent lightbulb for the moon,
I would risk one more rejection to bring you even nearer,
past the point of no return.
(Originally published in Corium Magazine, Spring 2016)
We reach for jagged rocks, the twist
and slide of fingers: morning rose in silk.
The cold sheets cling to warmth and
disassociate– that’s when the open window
invites the low static of engines, white
noise of chirps. Our eyes thrush
and perch, cradle into shared twigs,
into thorns, and gently lift. We whittle
our words into stems too thin
to hold, the wind unafraid to take.
(originally published in Thirteen Myna Birds, September 2016)
in the orchard, a mother drinks rosé, bites
into a granny smith. the other apples
are rotten now, well– autumn
peels history off barks. the trees become
malnourished skeletons, tiny skulls. forget.
over and over. bees gather nectar
and you almost forget to laugh. they pluck
the fruit. too young to remember, too
momentous. one time he played too close
to the hive– well, life isn’t honey, she said,
even if you are mine. finding a diamond
in a diamond mine. hey, that’s still special.
who’s to say if it’s worth anything. all her
jewelry. diamond in her open palm. show
me. oh, how it glistened– no one asks
anymore. she does not want anyone to.
(originally published in Botticelli Magazine, Spring 2016)
