too many avenues to take
to achieve [what]?
goldfisted, I punch Jupiter
through the rings
I’m bound to. a racetrack
this zipline I cling
to the forest not the tether
nor the trees many
branched and beholden
to gravity I seek
to lunge headfirst
through the brush
renewal in sharp
sticks and scrape
the surface of
what composes me
(originally published in Ginosko Literary Magazine, Winter 2021)
Salvador Dali
liked his spaghetti
soft as can
be: drooping
off the plate.
But Dad always
said stop playing
with your food!
I wish I could
have figured it out
before he died. I
would have told
him I was toying
with time.
(originally published in Ethel Zine, Summer 2020)
Acrylic in my head paints on canvas a monstrosity
the glut of guitars plucked and discordant my ganglia
a jumbled mess of math wrong equating crystals and string
circus a battle with the world its perspective a plane upside-
down on the runway screaming into sky oh I love who I love
and that’s the mallet rolling down the xylophone until the rot
an explosion at the end with upright bass scaling up
intensity while the sine waves crash against the shore
to counter the tide tolling against the whistling sand
(originally published in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Winter 2020)
Happy to finally be introduced, you said I’m proud of this architecture.
It’s true– your sketches are exquisite. In the gallery, your large displays
of heart-shaped buildings: blueprints of love in metaphorical forms.
A while ago, when I was lost and new (and you were, too), I knocked at
your door and the day led us to a festival, a sunny ninety. We drank
lemonade and walked with sour-sweet lips as ghosts through strangers.
It didn’t work out, us, but we’d see each other at shows and you’d ask me
when you’d meet my partner. Next time, I’d say, like I was ready to build
something new from the crumbles my desire likes to leave, how
to draw these ashes shapes for someone new to admire.
(originally published in where is the river, Winter 2021)
Palm to neck– tactile hypocrisy. My Adam’s apple,
weren’t my lips once sweet for Jesus? Crucifixion
was puberty lapping holy water in adulthood’s
church, blessed be hope. To remake myself
is a perpetual game of jacks and marbles
rolled by someone older. Rejecting rules,
I say I’ll get better.
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Winter 2019)
organ of the trees ring
the heart’s synthetic beating
the stepstep crunch
of leaves a drumbreathe
tenderly
the forest i lose
me the eye leaves
somewhere someone sees me
whose real
branch
of body
how corporeal the limbs
these purple nights return
(originally published in Kettle Blue Review, Fall 2018)
You can watch movies
for nine hours straight
and not see anything as poetic
as the walnut tree in your yard
decapitated by storm winds
I’m saying that’s the problem
(originally published in Penumbra Art and Literary Journal, Spring 2018)
We wandered the meat-factory-
turned-art-gallery, white wall to
white wall, wondering when to
dispel our abstract selves–
positive, negative, we followed
lines from canvas to grate where
blood of cattle used to drain,
where old concrete holds imprints
of feet. My hand sank into yours
that first time. I still see it there.
(originally published in Cold Creek Review, Spring 2018)
After Gray Clark
I need to quit my job as the caretaker of people
who surrendered art to come home from work
and watch television. I can imagine acrylic
burning a canvas for eternity. Giving up
mattered to me a year ago. It will
matter again in a year.
(originally published in Flypaper Magazine, Winter 2018)
If I don’t watch it, this lake
is vodka and I won’t care I don’t
know how to swim. Getting sober
is like that. I go out into the world
and look you in the eyes and say
I’m fine. I’m having a good time
and you go on never knowing
I was half-underwater, that
there was a monster trying
to make its way to the surface
and I had to push him down.
(originally published in Rattle, Winter 2018 – nominated for Best of the Net)