Nothing to start conversation with
but the glow of television, hors d’oeuvres
the crowd devoured and I could only stand
and gape at the electric wiring strung along
the ceiling that led to the hanging light
fixture, a metallic apple dimmed. I wanted
to talk about architecture but felt wildly
inadequate due to the bricks missing
in my brain, hammers clanking where
words should, my mouth full of nails.
(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Summer 2020)
there are many instruments that we are
and many more we are not
such as we are sometimes saxophones
who have not memorized love songs
but we have eyes to read the sheets
lips to blow into trumpets tubas
muscles to crash cymbals
pound the bass drum at night
we remain off-tune no matter time of day
arcs of trombone waves flute trills rainbows
the inhaled swampy atmosphere
of slide-lube and falling domino fingers
down the rigid clarinet air
melodic staccatos of sixteenth-notes
every piece celestas
on wet reed floor
the band room holds its breath
waits for us to play something
(originally published in Beech Street Review, Fall 2016)
I am a sun-drenched willow field withered and
purple. Headache remiss, wonder when the liver
will churn its nightly clarion call, squeezing rags
to drag the water out.
Sometimes the nights are like that in the silence
between friends. The drafts replace talking.
You can’t hear the words with breath so still
and distant, willows soon awakening.
(originally published in Transcendence Magazine, Summer 2016)
