I walked your stairs up off
snowy street you greeted me
I’ve got something you
don’t have besides I remember
the baby’s birth your sister crying red
tears I felt nothing in that hospital only
a month before we said for good– I must
have realized I was not in love I am not part
of this family in the annex chatter
what a joy this new life
screaming
(originally published in Datura, Fall 2019)
a sea of cars
parting people drive
home I am a delivery
man feeding fish and wine they
snap their fingers I arrive
in the flesh who else
would they wait for?
(originally published in Cirrus Poetry Review, Fall 2019)
Delivering packages–
I see names, not
always faces, but you,
I know your name
too well, your face in my
mind a ceaseless rain.
I knock on your door–
your dog barks,
wags his tail
when he sees me
through the window. I do
not stay for a signature.
I walk briskly
to my van and drive
to my next ping,
somewhere deep in
the city, another box
with a stranger’s name
on a different, faceless porch.
(originally published in Uppagus, Spring 2021)
you ask where we should
go and I say drive me
to my car so you
drive me to my car
because I tell you that’s
where I live and of course
you wouldn’t follow
up on this my Ford
Fiesta still smells
sweaty even though
I rent a home now
a compact is too
small to fit what
we’d have to
live with
(originally published in Nauseated Drive, Winter 2022)
stretched out on living
room couch long-
limbed nights seeking
God in conversation
all the crumbs we
leave under cushions at
times wanting to leave
you told me just believe
but I’m comfortable
sprawled mumbling
our conjectural
disagreements
this kind of love
even at odds means
a faith your brain
has a heart to rest on
(originally published in Carpe Bloom, Winter 2019)
little do we know
of anything
mindfog a desert light
progress
a stony monument
voyeurs
on a voyage
through the fog
(originally published in Adelaide, Fall 2019)
One moment I am breaking– nearly
out of gas at Junctions Pass. Another
mile before construction stops me:
it’ll be a few, a truck has to load up.
The first pause on this day of near-
death began in San Francisco
on my sister’s couch– I shared a Lyft
to my car in Potrero Hill with
Amy– the same name as the girl
I left the day before, but I kept
going. Almost ran someone over.
Strayed near a swerving taxi off
the crosswalk. Lost attention when
a light turned green, ignored horns.
This crystal absent-mindedness–
too many things happening I
never had a chance to process
what I was driving from.
But how weeds grow on the
bark of redwoods. How some
hills are angled such that their trees
live sideways, and then you wonder
how they bear their own weight.
You just wonder.
(originally published in The Local Train Magazine, Summer 2020)
For when the time comes,
you said & so, behind an oak
in his backyard, we tangled
tongues to the tune of the
party’s constant screaming,
heart-red Solo cups
separate and scattered
(originally published in WINK, Winter 2020)
If I had the cash to install
a giant portrait of myself
I wouldn’t want it
looking back at me either.
Keep my eyes
on those bluebirds up
and away!
My gaze
judging me perpetually
in the living room,
the present me
already judging.
I guess early on
I would get used to it.
Walk past the portrait
without registering
a thought. And one day
snap out from a daze staring
as the self stares away,
and then the next
in the morning’s
mirror– cracked,
smeared with
fingerprints
and dust.
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Fall 2019)
At Kelly’s, in the chokehold of August humidity,
we drink a pitcher of water before noticing–
like a brain of gum underneath a support–
a cigarette butt lodged at the bottom.
When we show our server, she shouts fucking
savages! This is why we can’t serve anything
outside. I tell my partner, if it makes you feel
better, it’s what we can’t see in the water
that will kill us. We get a free beer but, for
once, we’re aware of the toxin. It doesn’t matter,
though, being thirty-one with thirty-one years
to go. Twenty-fifty is when we will see
the clouds ignite. She says I want to say
we’ll be okay but I know there’s no way.
The Amazon’s in flames and hordes of
whales wash up on California’s plastic
shores. The water wars are coming from
actions of fascists and– the next day,
at the office, a narcissist colleague
sticks his dead cigarette into the soil of
one of our tomato plants on the balcony
outside the front door and he must think–
oh, as we find it cooling at sunset–
he thinks there will be no consequences.
(originally published in Quince Magazine, Fall 2020)