Airport Protest (January 29, 2017)

Planes have stopped searching the sky for answers
as the crowd gathers into the terminal, fists up.

For once, we are made of metal– wings to give
the silenced flight. We mobilize on the ground

with footsteps of thunder, voices of titanium.
In rising, we promise to fly, scan the landscape

for green landings. Drop the ladders down,
worry about the pressure– not the altitude.

 

(originally published in Urtica Lit Blog, Summer 2019)

One Example of Privilege – December, 2016

We were about to decorate the Christmas
tree in the living room, blue
lights and tangled cords, when Jeff said
we beat the Dakota Access Pipeline.
We agreed this was reason to celebrate
then swept loose pines off the floor.
Paige hung the usual ornaments: red
orbs, angels. Sara served hot chocolate
with cocoa powder, skim milk, vanilla
extract– warm in the heat of our home,
far from Standing Rock. I thought of Sophie,
who built teepees in the cold to stand with
the Sioux– how they risked frost and flame
to stay alive, and many of them did. But
when Long called to catch up that day
we didn’t talk about it.

 

(originally published in Pomona Valley Review, Summer 2019)

Diffusion / NBA Finals, 2016

Pacing around the bar crowd, watching
the Cavaliers transfer heat to one another through
bullet passes around invisible perimeters, Kurt

and I keep drinking the strangers toward us.
“Gaseous diffusion,” he offers. “Alcohol
is only molecules bumping into each other.”

Our bodies generate more heat with every swig,
the atmosphere tense but warm through
our gullets. We chug chaos in the blur,

invite a thousand basketballs to bounce up
and down halfcourt. The players don’t notice
our dribbled words in soundwaves processed

a million different ways in the space between
earlobe and brain. Endlessly the spectators
chant go to sleep because no one we want

to talk to wants to talk to us, our zigzagged steps
combining with the sound of a team on the verge
of climbing a challenging mountain though

the peak is steep so we try nothing more
but the drinks that keep us moving. To stop
would be to hear the room’s haunting cheer.

 

(originally published in The Drunken Llama, Fall 2018)

Southbound in February

  Almost swerved to Akron
      to delay our southbound silence
          before another car skidded into steel.
                 We smoked exhaust
            with sedans which scrunched
                    around us. Wiper squeals
            revealed hymnal landscapes
                through murky glass.
              I revel in footprints buried by snow
                                             yet do not know what–
                               if our black tires composed
                                     cadenzas in the slickening slush,
                           ambulance’s red, beating
                                    bongos thumping toward us
                                            –what we could have said
                                                   that would have ever been enough.

 

(originally published in The Slag Review, Winter 2017)

Kentucky Murder Mystery

no blood
where they found
my uncle
on the kitchen floor

hole in his heart
gun on steel barstool

on the drive to the wake
my aunt admits
she suspects
the eldest son

when I meet him
the first thing he says is
someone stole my idea
when I wrote Dexter in the 90s
I always wanted to write
about serial killers

when searching the room
no foam erupts from
volcanoes of old couches
no fingerprints to find

his suicide does not add up
my aunt says again and again
examining scrubbed floors
for heavy footsteps to appear
when nothing else will

 

(originally published in #theslideshow, Winter 2018)

Kimmy Granger

The green blanket over your head–
Kimmy Granger gets fucked
by a fake photographer
on your iPhone in my hand.
Meanwhile, you ride me, moaning–
it’s snowing– December’s waning
autumn days– awaiting a kind of fate
under flicked-off lights
in the gray of afternoon.
Before this, we reminisced about
the early days– laying in bed my hand
in your hair listening to music.
Then late July laying in grass saying
the ways we make each other happy.
Which is why I must rewind this clip
over and over to the part where Kimmy
is smiling and laughing before
the whole thing starts and
I pine for the blanket, your
green thread and lint.

 

(originally published in Ghost City Review, Winter 2018)

Winter’s End

Smoking, joking winter asking how to
                                         take things slow.
Drinking, sinking field is thinking about
                                         to let spring go.

Laughing, baffling cold front having one last
                                        frigid kiss.
Slicing, striking freak-snow lightning– go on,
                                        make a wish.

The cherry blossom knows there is a chance she’ll never bloom.
                             Wish for her, dear poet. Wish she’ll flower soon.

 

(originally published by Toe Good, Winter 2018)