Frisbee thrown by my brother at
our mother’s home, rising with wind–
he asks a question I can’t catch.
(originally published in International Poetry Review, Spring 2025)
akron
Tilted Reminiscence
I had my arm looped around your shoulder
at Zub’s always thinking of infinity inside
gooey strands of fried mac and cheese bites–
now I’m thirty-four, scared of heart failure.
I stand at my desk at work on a foam pad
with bumps and ridges. Anything to keep
me active, though I read Bruce Lee died
at thirty-two. I don’t know how I did not
know that until now. If ignorance can be
counted in the days I have forgotten, my
respite won’t be remembered. Perhaps the
paper clips that stab memories together
aren’t so horribly misspoken, though I
speak without stopping more than I used to.
The highway through my windshield grime–
at night, when it’s raining– everything is
chance, or I need better glasses, or escape.
I look ahead and forget all that is behind
me, inconsiderate to the rearview lights
who are trying to guide me home.
(originally published in ZiN Daily, Winter 2024)
I Never Considered My Grandparents
Whom I never met, would be buried in Akron,
the backdrop of sleepless drunk nights, wandering
park properties as if I owned them in my boisterous
consumption, alive but for the thrill of spending
time with those I wish eternity upon, gathered
before me the gargoyles, the hellraisers, the love
I could burrow underneath rain-pocked heartache,
one golden anniversary away from immortality
on a slab of stone drunk kids can stumble over
and plant their knees in the recycled mud.
(originally published in Impspired, Summer 2023)
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)
Marina & the Diamonds
After our date at Melt Bar and Grilled
cheese grease macaroni and butter saliva
dripped from our lips onto crumb plates
back when Marina & the Diamonds were hip
(if they were ever) in style I wired it from aux
cord to speakers to let you know I am not
a robot in an operatic tone indicating
romantic desperation my circuits buzzing
& I thought during the open-heart chorus
you’d say much more than cool
(originally published in Ygdrasil, Winter 2021)
Obsolescence
The only photograph of us we ever took was
at Thursday’s Lounge, on an ancient phone from
ten years ago. Your boyfriend at the time snapped
us, smiling, in front of the liquor selection. Neither
of us realized it would be years until the next time
we would meet again. Since then, I have acquired
a mountain of phones, piled somewhere in storage.
And while I want to find this picture for some kind
of momentary joy, I cannot hope to find one such
antiquity in a landfill of antiquities. I know the
memory has become warped, muted, fuzzy.
Since I’ve seen you, we have both compiled a
mountain of loves, relics embedded within
ourselves. The brain’s complicated wirings–
circuitry functioning enough to remind me
we were, briefly, more than a photograph.
(originally published in AvantAppal(achia), Spring 2023)
Mockery
we paid a judgment debt
now we drive red-on-blue
thunder on Akron soft-rock
in the void into the name-of-mine
where Katie and I
must make a mockery of ourselves
I must state I am not the opportunity
I need to define
you are the opportunity
and we pretend to avenge
our fallen love’s arches we are the same
down between dots that rusted golden medal
in an ocean of toothpaste of scraps of dirt shoes
of wings on our backs under legs covered in scars
of dark scuffed white on the wrong pavement
knowing no matter what I say
you are to tell me I love you
until we’ve laughed it out
(originally published in Mason Street, Winter 2022)
Tetris
I am reading old journals, putting
pieces of my past in place–
a series of staircase Tetris shapes,
a broken board mixing L.A. palm
fronds with bad haircuts Dad
gave me, but we needed to save
money, and I was bratty. I wanted
video game anime hair but got slanted
bangs laughed at by classmates and
teachers (who would never admit they
found it funny). I knew, and still do.
Sharp laughter edged in memory. I
want to say I’ve gotten over it. Over
all of it. But I still hold the smoky
gray of Nintendo controller in both
hands, and I am trying to move the pieces
where they need to go– but I am
older and life is faster, blocks falling
into places I can no longer find them,
stacking dark spaces to the top of my
screen after these earlier, easier years.
(originally published in Bond Street Review, Winter 2021)
Rabbit
Went to Thursdays with
a friend who quit boot
camp but hates this bar so
left. I am good at waiting in
darkness, alone, drinking.
Other friends come but are
clung on by creepers. I Woke
Up Today by Port O’Brien
plays and suddenly we’re on
the precipice of another Ohio
summer! I high-five Rabbit
AKA High-Five Guy who is
an Eagle Scout. He buys us
shots of Crown and Coke,
then throws his glass into
the air, aiming for the roof.
But there is a hole in the roof
and the glass follow’s gravity’s
stringent rules and shatters
on the kaleidoscope everywhere.
The bald, black-eyed bouncer
points a finger and we are back
on the streets, the future still
shards in our powerful palms.
(originally published in The Beatnik Cowboy, Spring 2023)
Tether
Whenever I meet a person
I like to think there is
a string tethered between us.
Not a cobweb or rough
rope but a violin, or a cascade
of violins, the song within you
within each person, too. I see
you in this coffee shop across
the block; thus, we are connected,
intertwined forever whether you
go to the space station or not
and I am stuck in Akron,
cursing God as ground-
dwellers do. Inhabitant of the heart–
in this world of small worlds,
this blue sunken sea I’m clung
to you at its depths, you cling
to me with the urchins
on your shirt, the breath
in your lungs my own,
each molecule moving
the way we together move.
(originally published in Poetry Salzburg Review, Summer 2023)