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)
Sudden the stone that cracked
the windshield, the storm that
struck the heirloom oak– you
ask for rain, beg for answers.
Soaked hands steer through
the blindness of the blur–
ten years now since Dad
merged into the final lane,
his pass misjudging distance
from collision, and that night
Mom heard a screeching
in her bedroom like a crow
passing from another world,
a bleak siren thrusting her
to darkness her headlights
could not cut through.
(originally published in Kingdoms in the Wild, Winter 2021)
we used to be musical soul
mates indie hipsters I guess
we got older I know we don’t
call Denver home in the thunder
storm under the oak by the nursing
facility it seemed good to call I
didn’t I lied to Andrew about
asking his mom to stay with her
he asked if I asked and I told him
I knew a place if he reads this
he won’t remember even now it
feels dreamed up like on a dark
Saturday evening in the feathery
backseat hammock of my Fiesta
(originally published in The Racket, Fall 2022)
I slept beneath the mall for some time
to avoid the burden of capitalism ha!
if I could that would be glorious to
avoid the landlord hey look I am in
the parking garage what garbage
all these ads for movies I do and
do not want to see but I would
not know I did not want to see it
until seeing that is the predicament
I do not have the cash nor the time
to spend paying for rent give me
gunmetal cement walls six floors
beneath the surface where I drive
to where not even bugs venture
there I am unbound
I fly in my dreams
(originally published in Train: a poetry journal, Fall 2022)
on the highway heading home
memorial day weekend sweat
takes my shirt off lets the sun
roast me through open window
wind fanning I’m so hot I say
to each friend passing before a
calm stretch I slow down horses
merge into my lane in a white
trailer why the long faces oh
they are way hotter than me
(originally published in Erothanatos, 2021)
When I say you are my number
one I mean in the line of infinity:
crystals in sand, the observable
universe, atoms in the pretzel of
our hands– we were in the back-
seat. You were in the middle
of a knot, trying to emerge
beyond the physics that
has no name to call us.
(originally published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Spring 2023)
My hand gentle on the vibration of DQ’s back.
We ascribe memories to animals. Anthropomorphism
is our system. Kingsford’s scent lies on fewer and fewer
surfaces– we vacuumed his hairs, changed the covers
this August of grieving, and in bed we say
the living one dreams of her human family. If ever
there was a before in this cat’s life, if ever she could
recant her past to us– what I hate about the cage is
not the sick animal inside it, but that I can’t explain
where we are going, or why, just he needs to trust
me, beyond all his mewling (we pass a fish truck
on Penn Avenue in sunlight) – trust me: where
we are going will end your suffering.
(originally published in Kalopsia Lit, Spring 2022)
Every time I drive the 28th St. Bridge I always make the joke
to myself– should I really be driving on this?
It’s a paunchy punchline to no one and still I apologize for it–
a comment on the bridge’s chipped green paint and rusted
hinges, the (perceived) rickety short-distance, its creaking (I
don’t hear a thing). How close I’ve been to a laugh, some snicker
into an abyss– I’ve said much worse to people and not apologized,
driving over the strip after a fight with my lover, suspended
in the air a silence like tracking a FedEx truck with a package
you know will reach you but when? That apology– the tethering
between the space of sound, the hum of a hungry engine,
covalence of steel and structure bonding across a void.
(originally published in where is the river, Winter 2021)
Wheels spinning,
the tanker trailer bears
down the highway.
The buzzsaw precision
of power structures–
thin, bald trees–
wheels spinning
in isolated towns–
American flags
flat and paved,
70 mile per hour signs
close and sharp.
(originally published in OVERHEARD, Winter 2022)
you ask where we should
go and I say drive me
to my car so you
drive me to my car
because I tell you that’s
where I live and of course
you wouldn’t follow
up on this my Ford
Fiesta still smells
sweaty even though
I rent a home now
a compact is too
small to fit what
we’d have to
live with
(originally published in Nauseated Drive, Winter 2022)