My father despised even the word
Satan. Believed our house cursed
if ever I were to bring a Ouija board
home. And he preached the dangers
of using the word fool– an insult,
he said, from the mouth of Lucifer.
As a family, we went to the theater
to watch Titanic, but didn’t stay to
see the ship sink. We left soon after
previews due to the devil’s language.
What set him off was a god damn.
We weren’t even allowed deviled
eggs. I never ate one until I made
a batch in my twenties with an ex, but
the mess was too mustardy. Dirty
dishes on the counters of a cramped
kitchen. Today– this slushy Christmas
Eve– a friend drops a fresh batch
of demons on our porch, and I hold
the first egg in my hand, a chalice
almost holy, the swirl a flourish,
a handheld soft-serve mountain
top. I devour the lot– all six gifts–
without fearing the sin of gluttony.
(originally published in SPANK the CARP, Winter 2023)
bible
For Halloween I’ll be Jesus You Be Mary Magdalene
my cigarette-smoking badass waitress
the Bible I’ll defenestrate at 3 A.M.
Mary I went to Catholic school
while Josh played bagpipes at the Oval
Absorb tradition with sugary cocktails
I didn’t say a word in the play
as Pontius Pilate I wouldn’t
have contributed
Watch men get crucified by wine
Watch women excise their seven demons
this party’s a tomb
of sacred skeletons
leave it to the wild dogs to feast
on the bottles of Jagermeister
we drink blue glasses
of Zombie in the corner
(originally published in Down in the Dirt, Winter 2020)
Mean Machine
The only good thing in this city
is my 1968 Coupe– long, slick, olive
green. Brakes, good. Tires–
fair. I may have worn the rubber too quickly
the way I sped through red lights after you said Jesus
would save me in these hard rains that summon
mud from yesterday, hell onto asphalt, and hiding
under the sheet you wouldn’t show me
your face anymore, said everything
turns to wine in time, but in this city there
are thousands of dry fish waiting for rain,
and you can be a kind of Jesus, you can
redeem your soul for bread.
(originally published by Eunoia Review, Fall 2016)
Rob Delaney
Hi, I am Rob Delaney.
I am not Rob Delaney
and he would never begin a five-minute set like that,
but before California dangled blackberries
above my granite mouth,
Rob showed us the way and the truth and the life
(John fourteen-six by the score of silent thumbs)
god, twitter fame was the only thing
that could bring us nearer gods we do not believe in
this big bang of a perpetually expanding following
we cannot fully understand
by choice I never listened to robins
conducting high-frequency symphonies
(but I did read Last Call of the Passenger Pigeon
by Daniel A. Hoyt that summer
and could form the parentheses of a whistle
enough to calculate the slow kettle of tea)
my father would sit on a pig stump
(an oak whose life he ended himself)
and watch birds fly the superhighway,
clouds like rush hour in L.A.
like some hippie saint claiming
all that is God
is not man-made
I always thought of bird-watching as a way
for the elderly to augment their loneliness
now all the young men I know
fetishize loneliness in themselves
(originally published in LEVELER – Summer 2015)