At Westside Pavilion, I watch shoppers
walk slowly to their Jubilees, carrying plastic
bags of silk and thread to the thrum of Monday.
I shop enough inside my hungry flesh, living
in my Ford, booking tiny television gigs to
replace my shoes. Sometimes, I am able to
watch myself in the lens of a softer society–
playing voyeur to my temporary belonging.
(originally published in Communicators League, Fall 2021)
Finn barks at the window & I try to understand why
make noise at the sunshine we are in the clear & inside
of our heads taking dirt showers beside the Pacific
we both are allowed in this home to live our lives
on all fours and from the couch watch the world
go slowly by
(originally published in Agony Opera, Summer 2021)
you invite me into a
hundred hungry dreamers
you / dis
mantling / dis
gusting
predator
of the light
(originally published in Goat’s Milk Magazine, Spring 2020)
Alone we stand
at Mt. Washington’s overlook,
the incline trembling. How
many nights did we seek
the city lights from Mulholland
Drive?
I reply,
Stanley Kubrick once
filmed with only candles.
You obscure the view,
flick Bergman on your phone
and ask, do you see the reaper?
His head an egg floating
atop a sea of darkness.
(originally published in Vamp Cat Magazine, Summer 2019)
Of course I remember how to be alone,
how to drag a lawn chair out to smoke
a shore and offer loneliness a bottle.
But there you would meet me
on a staircase of sand and we’d
gaze at the stars, meld into soft
landscape, cheek nuzzled in
a palm, starfish digging into
the sandwarm face of earth.
(originally published in Literary Yard, Summer 2018)
Bluebird floating
blue across the redlands–
when did I become
isolated? You said
I had a home
to sleep, I just had
to ask but
I would never– except
I did the night we shot
arrows across your
driveway, my quivering
aim missed the tree
and nearly pierced
a squirrel’s eye–
(originally published in The Wayward Sword, Summer 2018)
the raindrop
life (transience
is a home)
loneliness
forms
on clear days
rising out
of reach
& always
when you wake
(originally published in Literary Yard, Summer 2018)
I remember pink tongues of vodka became the Pacific
and we’d drown the breeze, water at our feet,
and keep lapping the glass bottle, lips on plastic cup,
swig after hazel-eyed swig, watching hang-gliders
soar inevitably to land, like us, at some black-and-
sand conclusion meaning one of us was wrong, one
of us always mouthing the wrong words into wind,
wisps of brown hair meandering to the air, ocean
blues fading peripherally into drink to swallow
the burning, your dimples creased up, unable
to look in your eyes to lie about love anymore.
This is what I remember of your face.
(originally published in Furtive Dalliance, Winter 2018)
I deliberated when traveling the country
because there was no one anywhere waiting,
no one on either coast with arms open wide to hold
me in their jacket in an ocean breeze– no, grime
rocked from screen to shade. The tide of film
frothed over tours viewing Santa Monica
for the first time as if, as they had hoped,
there was something new to see.
(originally published in streetcake, Winter 2018)
Since I first saw your face
shine from a stage and again
in desert sun and through cool,
desert night, you always felt right.
We are soaked now in swimming
pools and sands pooled near
the coastline’s swaying smile
that thrums for us; and here,
water kissing submerged feet
anchored in each other.
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Winter 2017)