Show a baby grass
for the first time
yes
there will be more of that
(originally published in SAND, Spring 2023)
beauty
Kiss of the Cantaloupe
Sweet-suckled Slovenian lips–
Cleveland where I found you,
Columbus were you lost.
Some days a black blanket
we would lay under to seek stars
seeking something cold &
how our temperatures dropped
over the years. We’d burn nights
matchstick young, whiskey and coke,
peel clothes to cool– so the blades.
Puckered and bundled, how to cut
& create tiny crescent moons.
(originally published in The Penmen Review, 2018)
Models
You cut my face
from a magazine,
pulled tanner grass
in L.A.– how you
lose your sense
of color with nothing
but blue sky and sun
and sidewalk cigarette
stains, everyone dead
in their own way.
(originally published in Califragile, Fall 2017)
Long Beach
from a high rooftop after rain,
headlights lead their drivers
to safety in a grid of electricity;
slick, mighty towers surround
and glisten from orange streetlights;
the harbor, an unending cascade
of dreams painted
in reflected, rippling stars–
you can hear, from outside the metro,
a shrieking man in an aureolin raincoat,
several hurried severities of shoes
clopping on sidewalks
still I will tell you the city is beautiful
when far enough away to never see
imperfection
and I’ll hold you close,
hands clasping your ears,
our own static to block
distractions which, for the beauty
of this moment, do not matter–
(originally published in Random Poem Tree, February 2016)