you threaten me with a walk
outside I acquiesced but the rain
came anyway and ended the plan
for temporary freedom in the confines
of codes covered up for the necessary
health & safety of others I love who
might love me if I could hold their
gaze for more than a moment
(originally published in Ink in Thirds, Fall 2023)
2020
Bro
Get out of my life with
your election signs. Don’t
tell me what stakes
you stuck in your front lawn.
Come on. I know you’re not
a boomer. You say we’re at
a crossroads and I gaze
into the neighbor’s yard–
used to be bushes concealing
every outside path. Now there’s
someone on a lawnmower severing
the bonds of grass, in intervals,
each direction I look, each time
I visit home. And we comment
each new motor makes it harder
to reach each other. Mom’s
neighbors want to beat the rain.
We just built this fire in the back
of my childhood home. These
bundles of sticks my mom gathers,
waiting for us to come home
some early October Saturday.
At my brother’s first mention
of herd immunity, my sister
suggests we seek more kindling
in the tall grass. The air is
parched but we must keep
burning. Firewood left from Dad’s
death we’ve already forgotten.
My brother says we’re gonna
lose all this country fought for–
Dad survived World War II
only to shatter his ribs on a fire
hydrant sixty years later. Mom
would not let the coroner dig
into his carcass for an autopsy.
In his later years, Dad would keep
a hose beside our bonfires. Still,
we hunch over heat together,
burning hot dogs on forgotten
skewers. We dredge the past
again: a year after my father’s death,
cooking hot dogs over walnut husks,
one of you said there could be
an industry for the timbered taste
coating the tenuous meat we’ve
shared over the years.
(originally published in Alternate Route, Spring 2023)
Strangers with Appreciation
IN BOUNDLESS EXPANSE
BETWEEN JOB AND SILENCE
NOSTALGIA AND THE EVER-
LIVING PRESENT I SIT IN FRONT
OF A PROJECTOR SCREEN
COOLED BY THE WINDOW
UNIT I CAN DERIVE NO
MORE MEANING TO VIDEO
GAMES NO
it is the purpose of a stranger to dream
for me to be engaged so in his fever
your creativity is what I want
now that I don’t have the rapturous
privilege of losing myself
but haven’t I
wrestled with every single
whim every whistle
of the wind that calls for me
I answer
for a little while then reach then
ASK NO QUESTIONS
FOR ANSWERS I COULD NEVER KNOW
THE MEANING OF THE STARS NOR
MY PLACE WITHIN MY BRAIN WHERE
THE SOUL SITS
it’s sick sometimes in
how I want to be someone else???
but I look at old pictures of myself
and think he’d be so happy to see
how unrecognizable he is to himself
(originally published in confetti, Fall 2023)
On Sassafras the KEPT ONES
In the alley toward the strip yellow
plant caution tape walking through trash
valley to Iron City Beer no one
needs to pack bags stepping on
white rocks on Sassafras the KEPT ONES
under clouds. Wonder who makes
it out alive. Plastic bag with Lysol
wipe flapped in the wind when tossed
in the trash. Another event stupidly
beautiful to admire. When I look away
I could crash into sunflower NO PARKING
signs. What masochist places
these in the middle of a long busy stretch
of sidewalk? Now bees won’t leave
me alone in this heat
(originally published in Spinozablue, Fall 2022)
April 6, 2020
We rearranged the patio
though no one’s allowed
back. Silver chairs survived
the winter, now the virus.
The navy rug we slid on
brick, under long legs.
We hung string lights under
nostalgic blue, a horsefly
floating by. We put our porch
tables there in negative sun
when I said the new people
watching is through barbed
wire, through dead weeds
overlooking distant sidewalk
behind the abandoned printing
press and the parking lot
of Rite-Aid. There
I saw a congregation
shouting and prowling
abandoned concrete.
All I could picture
was ubiquitous spit–
how will the world
seem clean when
we are allowed
the world again?
Beaks of birds,
always lurking.
(originally published in Ginosko Literary Journal, Summer 2021)
The Sword of Light
This fixture you forgot
on your back patio.
You say you are confused–
how did that turn on? It has
been months since I last visited.
I say the light is a metaphor
for our friendship. Big plants
sit in chairs in your brown-fenced
garden. Don’t know how close
to be anymore. Never get too close.
A tomato vine peeks from a planter
above you. Gardening’s a hobby,
inching toward the thirty you fear.
An August birthday during the lost
summer and you toss a squeaky
blue ball in my general direction,
more wildly as the night goes on,
and Lola retrieves it every time.
You say she slept upstairs with
you for the first time. We joke
she didn’t fall immediately, that you
had to tell her to turn the television
off, stamp her cigarette out. With our masks,
I only see your eyes smile. I hope you notice
mine. It is dark, as it has been for months,
and we try to stay illuminated, despite
these killer particles suspended
somewhere in the talk between us.
(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Summer 2023)
Look for Me, Someday, in a Sentimental Ad
I dive into a fresh pool of shining glass–
who wants to spend their years with me?
The new-city-me screams its lungs out for
you. Looking to the past, I fall in love
again. I’ll be promiscuous when
unemployed. I can’t face life
pursuing absolute perfection. Maybe
I will soften my hair, finally. My cat
may not be into this. We lay sideways
in a beam of sun on dust-layered carpet,
moving our eyes to the wall’s tricks of light.
(originally published in Count Seeds With Me [Ethel Zine and Micro-Press], Spring 2022)
August, 2020 (Five Months Quarantined)
sorry about all this junk everywhere
we won’t leave the house it’s a hundred
degrees heat the same rooms the same
clouds the same dust nothing to escape
so much shit you yell all of it is oil slick
off our bones if I could sell my veins I
wouldn’t but someone would you would
purchase them and ornament my body
sell my cheap taxidermy that’s just how
it is there ain’t enough drugs in the world
to convince me otherwise there are
I’ll trade you thirty dollars for an exciting
week enough for an air bag each small
car ride home do you have weed? what
should we do? these nightmares every day
give you nightmares every night they hit
you in the chest and your mind just screams
no more what is the problem do you care?
let’s play fucking music we need blood
so we can sweeten so we can sleep finally
classic rock we got the sixties beat
let’s drink until it’s cold until heaven
is an illusion we did it now look
(originally published in BarBar, Summer 2023)
Nest
All this nesting leaves me
exhausted. When you awaken
I am too tired to live. One day
the hawk will know this. Sunrise,
the same tender air of earth to feed
new omens. The day a hill
between thunderstorms and ruddy
sunsets, with water neither
ephemeral nor potable.
Quartz trembles and falls
into my mouth. Words
say whatever is in them;
they always fall. A cowbird
on a branch sends out her scent.
(I realize these rocks are symbolic,
a character for which a metaphor
has never been written.) My nest
surrounded by stones has come
to speak in ways that neither
of us can hear. The nest is not
a cage, yet the absence of
a nest is also not a cage.
Inside whichever– I
know you have loved me.
(originally published in Capsule Stories, Summer 2021)
Google Home Quarantine
The crickets chirp when you sniff the cat–
that’s our bedtime routine.
Google asks us to set an alarm:
never.
(originally published in Winamop, Winter 2023)