holding a cigarette
until it flew into the mess
of a tree
smoke
like a white twig
I wandered
onto the crosswalk
without looking
the black sedan didn’t stop
(originally published in The Kolkata Arts Blog, Summer 2024)
city
Trust
I did not listen to my inner
monologue when it told me
to stay home and watch
The Novice. I went to Trace
Brewing when it was bright
but you sat in the dark
when I needed light. I
said one drink, one drink
only, then on the two-block
walk back the clouds
were down, they felt
attached to you and
I kept stepping on
plastic bags and
scrunched-up napkins.
To arrive home I had
to bisect my conscience
and wait: how much
of myself to give
after giving?
The water tower
in the distance
a perpetual blue
balloon.
(originally published in DoubleSpeak Magazine, Spring 2023)
Distraction
When the pain becomes
knives, you– bent over
by the mirror, clutching
your abdomen– straighten
your hair, put on make-
up. Beautiful people
get treated better. That’s
a fact, you said as I
drove. This is our third
ER trip in three days,
and today, finally, the
trauma team identifies
the piece of you that
needs removed. After the
diagnosis, I notice the sterile
painting on the wall.
A field, and what little
it contains. I talk–
an attempt at distraction–
imagine this being the last
piece of art a person ever
sees. Brush-stroked
delphiniums in the
grass, swaying,
the lake then light-
house that ascends
into blue. You look
for a long time.
(originally published in In Parentheses, Winter 2022)
Deer
Driving home from work tonight
on half-constructed roads, wet
with already-drying rain, ahead
of me a brown truck darts through
two busy lanes to get on his way.
How deerlike, I think, and
nothing more of it, until I’m
at a stoplight with unusual traffic,
and people congregate on sidewalks,
where there was recently emptiness,
a dread in the air, like construction
on these familiar streets that started
happening just outside of awareness.
A blue basketball rolls briskly in front
of my car, and two boys scream in
the silence of my Spotify, and I
wonder if I should pull over to
return the ball safely but I just drive
by and glance into the rearview mirror,
where one of them sprints from his yard
to his neighbor’s, through the converging
traffic, and I just try not to think
about it as I round the corner.
(originally published in Thirteen Myna Birds, Winter 2022)
Peel the Cityfruit
I bite into the apple of new downtowns
sweet against my tongue
feed car through deserts to find
myself toward perceived oases
los angeles in the middle of a drought
of ideas guitars strum
the streets & make a new city
to be lost in
(originally published in First Literary Review – East, Summer 2020)
city-data.com
In my living-in-my-car days I wandered the country wild
and thought often of my mom, slipping anew on the verge
in waking nightmares: silhouette with angled knife at
my car window. Never peace, even in sleep, though I
was lucky, had a roof, silver shining. A Ford Fiesta
occupied. I’ve had a house broken into but I wasn’t there
so it never felt like it actually happened, and the thief
took nothing I could remember missing except the mirage
of having control. But living in my car I knew separation
only by windows, fragile and claustrophobic. I slept in the
backseat and thought that would give me an extra second, if
needed. Sleeping in Walmart parking lots I hoped to be
able to see my mother again and I lied on the phone,
verbally lowering crime rates for cities I slept in.
(originally published in Ghost City Review, Spring 2020)
Pool
so much depends
upon placement
an 8-ball
between stripes
at the edge
of a hole
a drunkard
aims the stick
knocks in
loss
with unbuttoned
cuff
(originally published in Door Is A Jar Magazine, Spring 2020)
Fireflies Burning Blue
Our world is made
of water, of sadness.
Blue hues in a
supermarket’s faces.
Green bills,
blue hills.
These are wings of sky,
the mechanics of flight:
sidewalks float bugs
that gently illuminate.
There are no more
fireworks, only quiet
landing of legs
onto concrete,
the resting a belief
you do your best,
you try.
(originally published in The Sunlight Press, 2020)
Dishwashing
I steep myself deeper
into the capitalist game
the rubber hoodoos
of the rack
complicity is my zippered mouth
and I walk with papercut
cardboard out through
a parking lot of gnats
I open heavy squealing doors
to place waste in a dumpster
floating on a non-potable puddle
(originally published in borrowed solace, Winter 2019)
We Call Our City “Garden”
plastic cups
pepsi seeds
dandelion dumpsters
pickaxe
shovel dig
our potholes
drought soil
vegetables
waiting hoping growing
(originally published in Peeking Cat Poetry, Winter 2018)