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)
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)
your drunken bed / the absinthe
& worm / I waited / in the candle
-light for dead lovers / two apartments
ago / downtown / how the spirits
summoned / lingering
lust / cigarette smoke
living / rooms stained
sweatshirts / rugburn turtle
couches / bleeding
fabric / and sex
(originally published in streetcake, Summer 2019)
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)
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)
Raccoons are afraid of
us, as we are.
We walk hand-
in-so-many-other-hands.
There’s a neon magic to our universe,
turtles creeping up the interstate.
Laughter echoes.
It’s okay.
There is still sound
with us gone.
(originally published in After the Pause, Summer 2018)
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)
phone call–
distance. silence.
static tethered to words
back-of-throat now wandering
clouds.
(originally published in #theslideshow, Winter 2018)
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)
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)