a blank in earthsong stone
quartz a scream into the void
a thousand tourists hear
to mean joyride when
I mean missing I want
to be a thousand people
at once over the course
of the day it happens a
spectrum of tongue and
skins to slip on to belong
as a cog in the clunky
function of the world
(originally published in Vamp Cat Magazine, Summer 2019)
Quantum physics have never been
more real than in this steaming
silver pot of Annie’s shells
and cheddar butter and milk
I’m cooking and the cat in our house
attacks crumpled-up balls
of paper yet sprints in fear
when a toilet is flushed. We are
all in orbit. You and me and
Earth and spoon in pot
mixing components into
tornado and I don’t know
where the melting butter
ends up nor the cheese
or where I’ll be in ten
years or a thousand
because our atoms
can diverge into
two paths any given
moment
THE FIRST PATH
the one where you and I and most our friends and family are still alive
because ten years is a long time someone both of us love has died
it’s my father I see dandelions on the dead a suit and tie something
he never would have worn & your mother her silky dress and
Avon perfume wafting through the wake the frost her
permanent winter bed
THE SECOND PATH
the one where you and I and all our friends and family are still alive
because ten years is a long time someone both of us love will die
I see a bowl of ashes I see dead dandelions wilting on the stove
the steam carries souls up into my nose where I recall the heat
and depth of the Grand Canyon sun pressing against my
neck Dad in his thick glasses & sweat arms around me &
I pick up a stone & throw it over the edge
(originally published in The Courtship of Winds, 2019)
sand lodged in the crooks of fingernails
watch the way light
reflects its own water
the last time something glimmered
was birth driving ninety
through the Arizona desert
the scorch in red rocks
pursued our same dreams
pricklier than a cactus
you leave who you love
the phone conversations
of dryer lint and treble
in heat, tires tremble
in cold, you wait
(originally published in “the vacant hinge of a song“, courtesy of Origami Poems Project)