Skinny Love isn’t your strongest (red
guitar grass blades, guzzles of beer)
the world doesn’t know your name
still I walk infinity eights through
your friend’s backyard evading dormant
dog droppings while the strumming lands
soft & sweet, butterflies on my cheek.
I’ll find a blanket somewhere to sit on
under the awning, a shade for when it rains
(originally published in Ink Pantry, Winter 2022)
Watching cardinals by the window, I expect them
to drop dead. But they never. Instead, we keep drinking
bird-themed beers and fly in orbit around each other’s
other lovers, because when we are drunk we call ourselves
a cockatrice couple, the way we span to such great lengths
to say, we’re blooming, there’s nothing wrong, we bloom.
Always, we come down to earth and say we can’t, never
could. When we land in water, our human qualities
return. Can’t withstand
the current.
(originally published in *82 Review, Fall 2022)
At Giesen Haus late, we drink long
islands on empty stomachs until
we make nacho shots – chips loaded
with beans, jalapeños, cheese, the finisher
being the rest of our twenty-
two-ounce Doppelrocks. Because
the Haus is closing (we do not
know soon, for good), we
walk the blurred street to
The Basement, get another ale,
maybe two. We tweet Rob
Delaney when we decide we need
thirteen more drinks before the end.
We make another shot, the Dog Blowjob–
Raspberry, Blue Raspberry, Jameson–
IHOP at 2 AM, our waitress tells us a time
she was stuck in the snow, drunk, and a
customer paid her for sex. Cinnamon
pancakes, hash browns, we wait what feels
like forever amid endless summer now
that we are adults. 5 AM we walk back
to Giesen Haus and somehow, I drive us back
now. We cruise down Whipple to Bloom’s
hypnotic Wild, witnessing the sun attempt
to rise from the depths of night. In a few hours
I finish reading Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,
which I want to like, then watch birds
in branches with binoculars received
in the mail. I peer through all the nothingness
green. I start Siddhartha, play Skyrim, binge
Breaking Bad. Later in the week, I put in
thirty hours of restaurant work with
all the time in the world.
(originally published in Dreich Magazine, Summer 2020)
What became apparent in the French Quarter–
what brought me there– wasn’t shattered glass
bottles on Bourbon Street, but that all actors
must at some point visit, then become so
wasted everyone laughs before fearing what
they might do next. Still, I drank the days
then sang Psycho Killer at a karaoke bar
so dehydrated I collapsed from back spasms
because I wasn’t enough myself,
and DJ Mud stopped the song when I fell
on the floor writhing. I told him to go
on and everyone howled as they
waited for me to stand on my own
and cheered when I did. Someone
bought me another drink
and I walked out through drunken
tourists and cops on horseback
into the middle of the street
near the end of a long road trip
that burned through my savings
to land me renting a room in a
house where each day I wake
still drifting and dreaming.
(originally published in Pomona Valley Review, Summer 2020)
At the bar, I ask if you want shots.
You say, no– 2X, so I ask is that Dos
Equis? We laugh, then you tell me
2X is an IPA from Southern Tier.
When I order PBR you fire back
I don’t do that shit anymore.
At our table you lean into me,
staring at the red, paint-splattered wall.
You say I went to school with someone
who was killed in the shooting last
weekend. I think– there were two–
then ask if you’re okay. You
cock your hand on my thigh
and lift your bottle to toast me–
our clink of drinks a cold hard
cheers to the body of a rifle.
The skin through the holes
in our ripped jeans is heavy
against each other. You whisper in my ear
the world has too many people.
You shoot to the opposite
side of the table and ask,
how many people have you had sex with
who are dead? I say none that I know of.
And knowing you want me
to ask you, too, I mouth,
you?
Your smile loads a magazine,
amber bullets in your eyes–
you flash me the peace sign.
(originally published in Red Eft Review, Summer 2020)
I took a photo of herons walking in Pioneer Park.
Followed them through grass to the St. Pete Pier,
sunrise blue reflecting forever upward. I thought
the road trip would last an eternity. I asked Tracy
if I could stay. Now I am in Pittsburgh, reflecting,
without yachts and breeze, just beside the living
room window. A gray-haired man drives by in
a silver Toyota Tacoma, heading to wherever.
In those days I followed everyone, every whim.
Tracy had other plans. These days I rarely drive,
and when I do it’s up a hill, over ice, or out of
hunger. The cool emptiness I used to carry
to bars, leather wallet bursting with receipts like
unkempt hair– I’d drink until finding purpose,
the familiar, unpaved road to drive on.
(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Spring 2022)
beer pong in daylight the yelling
sun chastises our weekday conundrum
of pennies thick-rolled in bank
accounts worth splashed gravel
I lose more than nostalgic games
and afternoons used to be the goal
was get plastered now there are
lingering lips on plastic cups
that need the wastebin
no one wants to clean up
(originally published in Hamline Lit Link, Spring 2020)
tin colander holes parts of me peeking
out into the kitchen horizon past the stove
which so very recently burned blue &
contained above potentially dangerous
gas of which you were in control
unlike last night you did the right
thing begging cathy not to drive
home her slurring sentences
& drunken desperation just
hours before all three of us
together I had to walk home
after downing Nosferatus
and you were there with her
drinking tequila when you called
to say now I really
have to say goodbye
but everything was fine you
arrived at your destination
but she wanted to
drive again the night
air thin
& shivering &
blue when she
departed
(originally published in Gingerbread Ritual Literary Journal, Winter 2021)
10:33 AM on July 4th
& if that ain’t some
gunslinging fortune
my drinks have teeth
can’t mix with coffee
I am trying to stay awake
I am trying to stay
a firework of politically conscious
colors
most mornings the soup of ritual
I gnaw at the aluminum’s tab
when my beer has ended
I am not satisfied
no
I am not satisfied
with this ending
(originally published in Datura, Fall 2019)
It’s early and I
can’t fall back asleep– maybe, before work,
I can enjoy a beer or two.
[I deliver food]
Cut to: work
It’s slow.
Maybe I can sneak home
and have a can in the car.
The depth of craving
I scoff and deny.
What keeps me going is each lap’s checkered flag–
if you can get to February, you can drink. [my partner]
Cut to: February [sober]
I don’t think we should drink.
We can wait another month.
It’s Saturday night and I have drymouth
and the house crawls with
bottles, chasers, faucets, an empty
champagne bottle on display on a table.
Such is a trophy. Gold-adorned
bubbly. I can tell you the kind
of night it was that drank it:
ordinary.
I was how I was.
Who can I become?
(originally published in TreeHouse: An Exhibition of the Arts, Summer 2019)