seemed natural
ten years ago
to be at the pool hall
drinking coke
with secret rum
not worrying
about climate
AC blasting
to beach tunes
Fresh Prince remixes
windows open
to the dust we
every day inhale
body sand
castles
at the foot
of warm oceans
(originally published in River Poets Journal, Winter 2019)
I am losing my mind in this
house– boring deterioration
of romance. Time is heavy
on the wings of expectation,
an invasion of pigeons into
the frame once marked for
a sacred arrival, a collapse
of constructed survival. The
sky strangles us with beaks,
bloodshot eyes, a crowd
hungry, hoping within
this scene’s a savior.
(originally published in The Cannon’s Mouth, Fall 2019)
I don’t know what you’re saying–
I was just baptized in sensory deprivation
saltwater. You took an Adderall
to live in your tornado of case papers,
clacking away at the keyboard buzzing
with school sentences I do not crave
to understand. From the speakers, jazz
dances uneven through honeyhive fluorescents
above us. I scoot my chair in closer
to the table, and there is a squeak either
from my movement or a clarinet falsetto.
Sometimes the world is synchronized;
sometimes a miracle I make excuses for.
I held the planet’s limestone on my neck
when I was afloat– it became weightless.
(originally published in RASPUTIN, Winter 2020)
I rented an apartment of bees
that first year in Los Angeles
sticky buzzing day and night
stingers past the turn of knob
sunny day the bees hovering
over body encircling you
paranoid optimistic dreamer
don’t leave the hive yes stay
get stung camera rolling and
action as in stasis as in days
wrapped around you burning
August blankets dripping lust
for fame everyone plays the
game gathering in droves to
hot stove hands on surface
level interaction as in in-
action
(originally published in Chronogram, Fall 2019)