I am enough to fail you, too. Thanks.
Thanks again. What you’re advertising is
you’re not going anywhere. A pebble in a
puddle. A train softly humming in the past.
The cat scratches at a door you never open.
(originally published in The Heartland Review, Fall 2019)
Blackbirds suspended in triumvirate.
Clouds in a sea of burnt clay
mold into a blanket, the bed
unmade. Every beautiful sunset,
look:
see the others on their phones
snap photos for strangers,
likers, digital lovers.
Lowball grandeur on a
five-inch screen.
It’s gone in a moment, anyway,
the pixelation of life,
bloated
and trapped
and yours.
Palm trees stand as windmills,
stilled, and they cannot fan
the vertical Culver sign,
risen like held smog.
Headlights on cars move
indistinguishably in time-lapse circles,
one after the other after the other.
(originally published in The Literary Commune – Issue #4, April 2015)