eyes close, a portal opens
to rain, silent homes / shields for
the wet and yearning. . . escape, enter, in
speckled ceiling light, visions of rice
and effervescent soaking / murk
in nonchalance, the 21st century–
has it ever been different?
(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Fall 2024)
brain
Reruns
I sit by the fan
this May afternoon
alive forever
in the green
of our home-
made salad
(spinach, chickpea,
yellow pepper, tahini),
sore and sweaty
from carrying air
conditioners up
steep hallway stairs.
Using the heat-
gun and pliers
I straighten
my brain’s
antenna.
Our argument
becomes static
on a tube TV
in someone
old’s living
room.
(originally published in San Antonio Review, Winter 2023)
Indebted to Entanglement
When I look at a pool blue
sky, I see flesh, the dried sweat
in clouds. My thoughts are grotesque
to myself. Incense smoldering.
A trembling abstraction. I know–
in theory– I am not indebted
to you. The space beyond our knot
is eternal. Every night, my brain tells me
nothing may be beyond your control,
but each day I wilt at the irresistible.
(originally published in MONO., Spring 2022)
Please Stop with These Old Photos
it’s too much pain to view them in my brain
the brain hungry the eyes always feed it
processes everything as sadness I eat the cosmos
with sight yet fixate on what I have
lost everything a miracle of blood and dust
around me and in the fog I loop December
nights with the dull orange parking lot lights
we walked under to get home and in my hand
there are snapshots of us holding hands
everywhere in the known universe!
(originally published in New Pop Lit, Summer 2020)