Greyhound

is what we call grapefruit juice club soda
and vodka. Also the name of a wolf and
cost-efficient bus. There is where you told

me stop drinking. But it gives me fangs,
these gnarly sharps I say I need, let me keep–
tires spin in the mud, my bedroom where I

drink alone. There’s a delay. Of course.
It’s 6 PM. It’s 4 AM. Half-crescent awake
drink through morning again. Stringshaped

street I’m twirling aloof. I know there’s
been some kind of mistake. This dim
lobby with icy hands. Who knows. The sun

might go away. Your call. You called my name
at the last stop– I wanted to be wheeled some-
where south of here warm all the time. Where

I can shave all my fur and sweep back up.
Lounge by the beach my tongue of drool hot
midwinter. Past the equator. Don’t you see

those yellow lines you’re swerving over…
underneath my shirt is another shirt I want
to remove. I’m running out of fumes. Soon

you will wait for me in the corner-forest
where it’s okay to talk to the passenger
next to you. I promise. You’ll talk

a head clean off and refuel.

(originally published in Thin Air Online, Summer 2018)

Dinosaur Wedding

To preserve us means not
bones found deep underground
by future archaeologists.

We fucked in this car no way
can we sell it. Steer away
from extinction. Navigating

backroads at sundown, you say
when I drink I become a meteor
growing larger in the sky–

open
bar, a silver raptor
perched on tall
white cake.

The planner
used a knife. The blood
was cranberry
vodka.

 

(originally published in Columbia College Literary Review, Spring 2019)

In Your Apartment for the First Time in Months

In your red dress you ask what you want
me to say to you but Lagunitas sips
the words I wanted in June out of me
leaving only amber hops & honey
to ooze from my mouth. You spit
a tumbleweed toward the wall
& it sticks. You say all I wanted
was to know you. Here I sink
into the quicksand of tan
leather couch. This house
was once full of orange lotuses.
We would burst flame
into bloom in the rooms
we set ablaze.

 

(originally published in Every Writer, Fall 2018)

Bronchitis on the Set of New Girl

Nearly midnight and I down Dayquil,
my orange savior. True: I shouldn’t be

here. I’m sorry, Zooey, for coughing
in your proximity between takes.

I cannot afford to not work. I was
stuck in I-405 rush hour of people

at the Medicaid office only to turn in
papers, proof of existence. This

paycheck is a pothole in a rich man’s
wallet. I hack a lung of concrete, self-

isolated from other extras in this closed-
off park in Culver City. I know most

are poor as me, our seventy dollar
paydays arriving in the mail one or two

weeks after. Each day, I drive to the post
office before it closes, turn the rusty key

into my mailbox. Sometimes I get an
envelope in my hands, meaning today

I eat. Other times, nothing but the scent
of gasoline I paid for to get here.

 

(originally published in Chronogram, Fall 2018)

The Blinds

kaleidoscope of the world–
you needed
               the only beauty

(nothing
                I can unsee)

everyone is a field

your head on his
                    shoulder

(if it can happen
                         again
                         it will)

 

(originally published in Grasslimb Journal, Fall 2018)