walking outside my ears freeze this café too crowded
sounds clamoring clashing the table rickety as I type
jittering just like me earthquake in winter I clamp
feet down on unstable leg a line of strangers behind
me talking demons pleasure scotch tape on wind
-ows advertising ghosts windblack Silverado drive me
into spring before glass shatters I cut my feet stepping
out of myself
(originally published in Runcible Spoon, Fall 2020)
in my poetry where are the bugs where
are the bugs hiding everywhere cock
roaches lurk beneath heaps of clothes
on the white bathroom tiles I turn on
the faucet and divine water sprays
from the shower head please scrub
the itching away the dermis micro
cosmic atoms creeping along the
ridges of my bodyhairs I know
behind the curtains what’s inside
the peels of avocados and apples
dead wing meat flecks my tongue
will lash at colonies in the cracks
of my kitchen poison in the paint
on walls to drop the husks into
the milk of my daily routine
in and out of bed the wind
a centipede its many legs
sing bristles on my skin
(originally published in Madness Muse Press, Fall 2020)
I know it was probably an isolated incident.
Still, we have tickets to see Future Islands
in Pittsburgh less than a week
after the bombing at Ariana Grande’s
concert in Manchester. You and me
and two close friends will be in close
proximity to throngs of strangers
for what has become a popular band.
I know it was probably an isolated
incident, but it does not take a tragedy
for a concert to become full of sudden
lights and screaming. I am not looking to fear
anything. But I am thinking of the children
who left their homes that night with the sunrise
in their eyes, expecting to cry only
at first familiar beat of their favorite song.
And I am thinking of the parents,
stopping at the arena with a car full
of excited kids, telling them to be safe
before watching their beloved become
silhouettes passing first into crowd
then crowded door. And I am thinking
of parents picking up their kids with
a frantic search through running bodies
and lights but only finding smoke
and sirens and sobbing, songs
we fear we’ll hear.
(originally published in Constellations, Winter 2021)
Amber water dripping from the ceiling–
inadequacies from above. Last night I drank
a strawberry margarita & saw on your father
the face of your sister. He poked a hole in the tile
with a ballpoint pen. Asked for a hammer
nails or a screwdriver & we had none. The
rain at war with this city flooding three days &
I face temperance by drinking less & choose
games at bars we fold up at the end of each
loss then go home to watch movies because
the self grows this way forward. You study
heavy books I lay on the rock futon in our guest
room far from the tarp across our bed & the new
carpet stained from what we cannot stop. Water
follows least resistance the contractor says.
I need small emergencies to seal these gaps.
(originally published in White Wall Review, Winter 2021)