a duck waddling in your throat
before a thunderstorm
try to quack all you can
navigate through water
(your wings
do not function)
remain afloat you remember
your body floats (what’s the word)
go fast as you can
in this pond you call home
you duck
you slow duck
come home to algae
fish
geese
ripples
(originally published in The Pangolin Review, Summer 2018)
The movement
neither initiated.
The joysticks dance
in orchestral unison,
taking turns missing
the light on the screen.
The proximity advantage
of cooperation.
Our feather jackets brushed
and the crowd howled around us,
moved in herds – an infinite number
of lives in which to press
the red kick button. Not a red
exit. Not to drink water in excess
of the salt, shake it over,
shake your damn hands and clap
once, clap twice, shiver in the
thorn-wine applause– let us
shiver within our bones.
(originally published in Kaaterskill Basin, Spring 2018)
On the way home from my first Passover
with your family we stop at an Olive Garden
in flyover country, where the waitress tells us
Happy Easter and, when you tell her we forgot
but still want angel hair, she jokes her last
table mistook pesto for alfredo. Sometimes
people confuse one god for another but never
their own, and food is ours– Jesus rising
with the dough of endless breadsticks
descending like ten plates of plagues, first-born
bastards in baskets we need no hunt to find
lest our mouths become black holes absorbing
absurd sanctities of tradition. Separately,
the Garden was where our families would gather
on intermittent nights to write our own Haggadahs
or speak sins of rock stars or mysteries
of faith. Afikomans for truth, perhaps, but instead
of matzo an endless bowl of a salad of words
in which we always beg for more
forgiveness without really wanting that.
And the waitress, before engaging the simplest rotor,
asks us to say when to end airstrikes of parmesan
and it does not matter when we do.
(originally published in After the Pause, Summer 2018)
I am a nail-punctured tire
the rubber smell
with you, unfinished, our wheels –
constant motion
squealing for still.
Our bodies, bands stretched and heaved
in bundles of clothing
(deserted starling
feathers scattered and–)
navigating roadmaps to our cores,
you can reach the end
and pluck what you want.
I just want you to see me for who I am
when your legs aren’t clamped around me,
the squeeze in the mitt.
(originally published in First Literary Review – East, Spring 2018)
How you ran
with eyes averted.
Kite and string, we
wanted the wind,
a laugh–
I hold and
wonder when
the breeze
will come.
(originally published in Up the River, Fall 2017)
mouth greasy from chicken finger oil I finally tell you
I love you the bowling alley piss-like or flower
petals words thrown down slick lane
quick spin make thunder in falling
pins in front of us no matter
strike or split or spare or miss
(originally published in The Magnolia Review, Fall 2017)
I.
the overhead light is a python shining into my eyes
this office is hissing: drills, rotors, a hanging
S at the end of a passing sentence.
they have taken so many x-rays
of my mouth these past few weeks
there the infected tooth stares back
in its gray and black graveyard,
deep in its flaw
II.
the doctor numbs me with needle
puts a cloth in my mouth, a cape
to make my face a superhero.
it’s an uncomfortable placebo
makes me think of super-strength
defense as she scythes the pulp out of me
III.
the doctor says god,
this is a pulp boulder
I have been looking toward heaven
digging and scraping many silent minutes
IV.
a drill
bats squeal and fly from the cave of my tooth
V.
the assistant tag-team switches for
a different assistant
the doctor says we’re finally getting somewhere
on the radio:
♪ like a virgin. touched for the very first time ♪
VI.
the scent of bone
or blood
or gum
or healing
VII.
the assistant says she visited the chickens last week
cute as dickens
I learn chickens have no bladders
and no bone marrow
and here I hold my urine
VIII.
the doctor tells me open wide
shoving cotton in my mouth
♪ shout, shout, let it all out ♪
IX.
they’re trying to figure out the actress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
the doctor holds a scalpel over my mouth
the name at the tip of her tongue
After an eternity I offer
Hahdrey Hehurn
I did my part
they’re proud
and there are no complications
(originally published in Off the Coast, Fall 2017)
Seagulls scatter where I stare
myself into the ocean, whose blue
reflects whoever’s gaze it
catches, growing stuck in the
mind’s red door humming self-
significance. The black scar
of sky overlooks this– summer’s
paint dripping onto the canvas
of the next, a bell ringing
after class, learning the
reverberations of its own
footsteps shuffling.
(originally published in Hamline Lit Link, Winter 2019)
spilled honey clings to black wires
connecting the world my lifeblood
laptop nestled in her shell safe from fingers
goldenrod shirt covers the old burns
the pinewood ashes coat my nostrils
the harsh wind blows crooked conifer to the verge
almost to fracture the window waiting
to kaleidoscope glass a body as canvas
hardwood red lust to cleanse gathering dust
rain pats the chair-infested patio drips of
laughter boomerang from slippery brick
and the blonde coughs from beyond the dark
halls of shed fur & grime
(originally published in Freshwater, Spring 2018)