mess of red awash on
verdant streets your face
the mist eyes closed
a crease stained stagnant
now what stops me stops
you purple blue glimpse
a rainbow near your voice
a phone call never call
again give me the words
to say those words
(originally published in datura, Summer 2021)
sometimes to sneeze is
a wave crashing onto
a piano at the top
of a staircase
and the force
of rejection
is but a small
concerto
with fins
(originally published in WordCity Literary Journal, Spring 2023)
moss spirit water
air with freshness
unknowing us
capable I understood
how much to lose
beside leaves
wilting off
trees onto grass
to grow anew
(originally published in Ginosko Literary Journal, Summer 2021)
Where I go from here, I cannot say. Stacks of uneven
boxes. Manufactured forests. The power of chainsaw
abused. Pull a cord your teeth shiver. I didn’t change
the thermostat when you asked. I was absorbed
into my own world by the time I walked downstairs. My
mind an ugly barge. Never swam confidently enough
to be here, in the middle of the ocean, no North, no
sun. Sharks in my mind, their triangle teeth and speed.
Jonah and the Whale. Dinnertime has passed. I do
not plan to eat until I learn to quench my sorry thirst.
(originally published in Maryland Literary Review, Summer 2022)
everywhere on the bagel, poppies
in the out of focus fields, poppies
the feeds scroll full of puppies
the home, poppies
what can you say about fireworks
has already exploded
in mouth in blood
we buds. we bud.
grandpa was a farmer
he tended to his poppies
white and wild wind
the wind. white and wild
(originally published in As It Ought To Be Magazine, Spring 2023 – nominated for a Pushcart Prize)
“They’re not deviled eggs
because Lucifer was once an angel.”
-Anth
At the bar you order
a small white plate
of celestial eggs.
Holy mayonnaise
yellow topped
with chives.
They are gulped
except for the last,
which you offer me
through telepathy.
I am the egg.
When I stop throbbing
is when I live
so I hold it high
in our five spotlights.
The arena cheers.
I see many doors.
Five floors:
on the bottom, death,
but each row above
a plethora of possibilities.
In your car, you say
I am feeling unmoored,
my shoe half-out your door.
The renaissance is what we
make. It is brown paint
over everything, the oil
light– you ask, what is on
your mind? I don’t know
how much you know
but I felt the warmth
of the machine beside me
thrumming on the street.
You were on the phone,
I think. I glared– I think
the end is coming
faster than fresh ideas
or the universe’s
rate of expansion.
The fact you drove
saved me from running
through the dark city
in the center of my existence.
In the shadow room
inside my house,
I did not process
emotion. The throbbing
sprain in my foot.
It was that death
issued a rain check
when I smacked my head
in the basement bar
of the indie theater.
I was the movie
everyone watched.
I left everyone waiting
for me to emerge
from the sewer. I swear
I will not group up next time.
I want each synapse
comprehended. To succeed
would be the stretchy fabric
of my living. Nylon
for the brain. Procrastination
for the ascent. I say you need
not worry because I am not
worried. Depression is a shovel
deep in soil and I am buried
in my mind, thankful
to be given a second
heaping of kindness
when I never deserved the first.
Hard to learn you
when my body is uniformly
jagged and growing
hairs sharp like knives
eternally out of every inch.
I want to be soft
with you, but once
we eat, all mysticism
is lost to process.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)
Tell me your wildest
vacation fantasy. There,
we will visit our home.
I dream of caves–
stalagmite fingerprints.
The drop, the black bat,
meat. There,
we’ll forget light
and its animal skin.
(originally published in eGoPHobia, Fall 2019)
Fill the cracks so the ants can’t infest.
This is the poison applied for feeding:
urine-yellow icky glue sealing lips
to take home to another body. Sometimes
words stick where I open my mouth–
the crevice between us not letting you in.
I, too, have brought small gifts back
underground thinking them an olive
branch. Each attempt kills one way
or another. Malignant misinterpretations.
I return with this pellet of words.
This killing I never meant to witness.
(originally published in Abstract Magazine, Fall 2017)
Thunder
was the memory–
booming in bloom
I take
without giving
you petals.
With mist lifting
off Lake Dardanelle,
I ask
what it means
to be new–
so young was the fog
the mind’s cleaver sliced.
(originally published in The Quiet Letter, Summer 2017)
The map leads from bloom to wing
to sky– we followed gracefully before
black swan wings haunted our spines.
I was tangled in the garden of words
and you did not believe a thing
I said. I cowered in sagebrush
to study flying squirrels (the wingless
claim the sky). I told you I would never tell
another lie because what is truth
in an ephemeral garden, where the birdsong
of thrashers becomes language?
I attempt to look away from truth
but the truth is, nothing in this world
shocks me any more than when I crane my head
to see the nightmare we have become.
(originally published in Zany Zygote Review, Spring 2017)