These sheets are itchy–
black silver Christmas present
from my partner’s parents.
This time of year is drymouth season.
The absence of horseflies–
still my skin wells up with red,
clay for a malleable waking.
Shut my eyes– I never want to see
the dying sun.
(originally published in Marias & Sampaguitas, Summer 2021)
you’re biting your nails again o sweet
white of time I feel in the December rush
of cold the whoosh of closed & open
doors the portals if I knew where to look
I wanted stripes & bite of thrush
behind me now the lust the what I liked
to look outside the window purple
slice of sky & zest of orange in the burst
of energy rushing up when you walk
& knock on the astrologer’s door
(originally published in The Metaworker, Summer 2020)
in my car
dead
white sunlight
shines off the shield
window waterstains
obscure the world gray
not flicking
the turn signal
left
or right won’t matter
a crash to a ghost
is whiplash
(originally published in G*MOB, Spring 2022)
Take a screenshot
(we’re temporary).
Name the ghost
our stains.
Snap a story for others
to forget.
When we filter
who we become
we love the fantasy.
(originally published in Fleas on the Dog, Summer 2021)
chugging along the narrow streets
between metal barrier and wisps
of weeds along the edge of concrete
mystery sedans pass proximally
close and the rush of wind against
shirt the rush of your arm against
me we flirt walking toward eventual
destination through sleeping hoods
nestled in the hills overlooking the
Allegheny and when we get where
we thought we wanted to go the bar
is purple and loud so we sneak to
play a fishing game in which you
get the quarters and I get us caught
(originally published in Perhappened, Spring 2020)
This all is a script about plotting.
An achingly slow clock. Poetry
makes me want to be outside.
Perhaps what is best is how
words move me to a surface,
but I remain in my Arctic superego.
What I mean is I am thinking
of what people will say
to me, to each other. A plot.
A whole movie inside my head.
I act in it, not knowing
what I’m doing.
(originally published in Avatar Review, Fall 2021)
I am feeling
dictatoresque
having already killed
a spider tonight
inching down
my bedroom wall
I crushed him
with a white paper towel
as I barked praise
for keeping
more insects out
of my house
but you can’t show
your face around here
(originally published in Roi Faneant, Summer 2022)
but it is what it is, this world, this sad state– yet
you tend the garden, lay bags of rocks to block
the blooming weeds from within the mulch.
You try what you can to avoid the world, but
it fights itself around you, despite the decay,
the same as yours, the aching soil, the toil
of the day, the rain and its deep clouds
becoming another pit that downs you.
(originally published in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Summer 2020)
it was in the baby days of the blue media
& we were walking around orientation
crystal faces emerged from the cave
expecting bats & bruises all existential
games ice-breakers fun facts we were
leaving a four-year institution we were
anticipating belonging to our minds
and enslaved by the neurons that era
was another step up the staircase going
into the union the first time a cop told
us a story about being raped in an alley
telling boys college might not be safe
while women walked by he eyed them
(originally published in Communicators League, Spring 2020)
I’m privileged to sit in my home on a sunny day
with just a headache
in late May two thousand twenty. God I feel
plenty guilty. My friends
are linking hands in the street and I am scared
of all that’s viral. Oh what has lingered
in the air since, yes, America.
I have wept with internet videos
in my shadowed home,
never gassed
standing up for what is right.
You say protests are only one part of the revolution. We can’t
just go out there and put ourselves and others in danger.
How does that help the cause?
I am donating fucking money
waiting
for unemployment to salvage
fruit. I can’t say no
to a food bank donation. To
the Freedom Fund. Reclaim the Block.
Justice for Ahmaud, Breonna… If I am not
downtown with my people
burning businesses of bigots
take all my worthless fucking money
and light the biggest fire
possible
(originally published in FlowerSong Press, Summer 2020)