close your eyes,
so you forget.
or remember.
whichever submersion
buries deeper
the salt within you.
it is only you afloat,
naked in the darkest night.
your body is a dream sailing
a sea of decomposing dreams,
patches of brown grass
underneath the auburn leaves.
release what you can touch,
especially if it is nothing.
by then it should not matter
if your eyes stay closed.
when they open, find comfort
in what you cannot see.
(originally published in Skylark Review, Fall 2016)
For two weeks I bathed deep in the sweat of whiskey.
Submerged vocals yawed to 3am caresses together, together.
The silken bed turns itself over, its base an earthquake.
Listerine breath hurls to vortex the two years of refraining
from the holy riptide– how its arms reach
and withdraw, reach and withdraw.
You would drown in the salt of married shells,
sheathe your crackled forearm in the tide’s tattoo.
You would let it embrace and clear
your pearls. Thus begins the tide anew.
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review)