every time the door
opens a burst of frigid
air gobbles the field
whole milk in my
mocha latte to
fight winter sadness
defines the palette
of the room monotone
grays beside the fire
extinguisher sign
points to a cheap
Hewlett-Packard ink-
jet no one has used
since being on this planet
I have grown purple
grapes of jadedness
thorny arms hug nothing
I have to say
(originally published in Books ‘N’ Pieces Mag, Winter 2025)
I watch the line of people accumulate,
a metaphor in front of me. Because nothing
can exist without some deeper meaning.
How people walk in and out of my life
in this coffee shop and I obsess on
the butterfly effect. I occupy a table,
but there are five open tables. I drink
from a mug, but there are many mugs.
How can everything mean anything
in such insignificance? The chatter
grows louder. I need follow-up reports
for every single person who steps
inside while I am here, especially
those who look and leave quickly.
I need to know how my insignificance
becomes significant– a small gust,
somewhere.
(originally published in Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, Winter 2023)
Masks encouraged. Totes hang on mustard
walls, all checkered. We’re in shorts and summer
shirts. I touch the bristle of my beard.
We’re allowed to now. To sip my rough mocha
between the gaps of my teeth under the hanging
honeybee lights, people all around me touching
their own faces.
(originally published in San Antonio Review, Winter 2023)
The endless universe of this coffee-church
I blend into the ground, ground
anxiety into yours, I met you there, pit-
pattering footsteps I couldn’t stop
listening to. I asked myself
if this was a joke
the way only nervous nothing I said
to you. Yah-yah-yah.
I am awake, I know
over this river I
Jesus-walk miraculously
you reach your hand
to me–
cold, wet illness.
Neither of us are
here.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Winter 2021)
I don’t know what you’re saying–
I was just baptized in sensory deprivation
saltwater. You took an Adderall
to live in your tornado of case papers,
clacking away at the keyboard buzzing
with school sentences I do not crave
to understand. From the speakers, jazz
dances uneven through honeyhive fluorescents
above us. I scoot my chair in closer
to the table, and there is a squeak either
from my movement or a clarinet falsetto.
Sometimes the world is synchronized;
sometimes a miracle I make excuses for.
I held the planet’s limestone on my neck
when I was afloat– it became weightless.
(originally published in RASPUTIN, Winter 2020)