Dark and spacious carriage–
architecture splits before me,
chunks of wood floating in green pond.
Summertime was a memory
I ate like strawberries
behind the wheel. Sticky khaki shorts
and burnt-out suns
encapsulate the void
closing in: a blood pressure monitor
on my pale and hairless arm.
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Winter 2020)
Bug guts in red shed–
backyard. Dad had
clippers with my name
engraved. I didn’t
trim trees after death.
Hired hands, tired
hands, ceramic
sculptured lawn.
I had to leave.
Mom said she’d
handle the rest.
(originally published in San Diego Poetry Annual, Summer 2020)
We cruised Penn Avenue as compliant
vagabonds to the parking garage train
station to deposit/withdraw rental cars
in other people’s names. For a long time
I believed if you drove the actor’s maroon
luxury vehicle, you’d become the moon
yourself, at long last a god you believed in.
Being one who has to drive it to where it
must go, I know by now you will guide
its hand back to beneath the famous blue
bridge in the strip. You will sit at your desk
in the grainy film of your dreams and sketch
the rumblings of this world until golden hour.
The sun, then, will gift upon you ultraviolets.
(originally published in Confluence, Spring 2020)