I am worried about the return
to normalcy the work of going
to work the work is what I am
doing what capitalists want
is your drive to drive x miles
with a red container of gas that
fuels us bright limitless stars
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)
This fixture you forgot
on your back patio.
You say you are confused–
how did that turn on? It has
been months since I last visited.
I say the light is a metaphor
for our friendship. Big plants
sit in chairs in your brown-fenced
garden. Don’t know how close
to be anymore. Never get too close.
A tomato vine peeks from a planter
above you. Gardening’s a hobby,
inching toward the thirty you fear.
An August birthday during the lost
summer and you toss a squeaky
blue ball in my general direction,
more wildly as the night goes on,
and Lola retrieves it every time.
You say she slept upstairs with
you for the first time. We joke
she didn’t fall immediately, that you
had to tell her to turn the television
off, stamp her cigarette out. With our masks,
I only see your eyes smile. I hope you notice
mine. It is dark, as it has been for months,
and we try to stay illuminated, despite
these killer particles suspended
somewhere in the talk between us.
(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Summer 2023)
(originally published in BlazeVOX Journal, Spring 2023)
I dive into a fresh pool of shining glass–
who wants to spend their years with me?
The new-city-me screams its lungs out for
you. Looking to the past, I fall in love
again. I’ll be promiscuous when
unemployed. I can’t face life
pursuing absolute perfection. Maybe
I will soften my hair, finally. My cat
may not be into this. We lay sideways
in a beam of sun on dust-layered carpet,
moving our eyes to the wall’s tricks of light.
(originally published in Count Seeds With Me [Ethel Zine and Micro-Press], Spring 2022)
sorry about all this junk everywhere
we won’t leave the house it’s a hundred
degrees heat the same rooms the same
clouds the same dust nothing to escape
so much shit you yell all of it is oil slick
off our bones if I could sell my veins I
wouldn’t but someone would you would
purchase them and ornament my body
sell my cheap taxidermy that’s just how
it is there ain’t enough drugs in the world
to convince me otherwise there are
I’ll trade you thirty dollars for an exciting
week enough for an air bag each small
car ride home do you have weed? what
should we do? these nightmares every day
give you nightmares every night they hit
you in the chest and your mind just screams
no more what is the problem do you care?
let’s play fucking music we need blood
so we can sweeten so we can sleep finally
classic rock we got the sixties beat
let’s drink until it’s cold until heaven
is an illusion we did it now look
(originally published in BarBar, Summer 2023)
All this nesting leaves me
exhausted. When you awaken
I am too tired to live. One day
the hawk will know this. Sunrise,
the same tender air of earth to feed
new omens. The day a hill
between thunderstorms and ruddy
sunsets, with water neither
ephemeral nor potable.
Quartz trembles and falls
into my mouth. Words
say whatever is in them;
they always fall. A cowbird
on a branch sends out her scent.
(I realize these rocks are symbolic,
a character for which a metaphor
has never been written.) My nest
surrounded by stones has come
to speak in ways that neither
of us can hear. The nest is not
a cage, yet the absence of
a nest is also not a cage.
Inside whichever– I
know you have loved me.
(originally published in Capsule Stories, Summer 2021)
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)
The crickets chirp when you sniff the cat–
that’s our bedtime routine.
Google asks us to set an alarm:
never.
(originally published in Winamop, Winter 2023)
I have lived long enough
to know to stay
out of the water. Bug guts
a crushed red berry beside
me. If there’s poison off
the dock– weeds in everlasting
web, I have a lot of gnats
to catch along the muddy
path around the pond of singing
birds and bullfrogs leading
the way to Destiny’s house.
(originally published in Roi Faneant, Summer 2022)
grape stem the fruit centipede
parched time
a skin between my teeth
fingernails tapping on blue porcelain bowl
then the controller my hand’s touched everything in this place
thanks for your spider fingers on the soft of my chest
lips purple with last night’s wine
new year burst with pessimism not
optimism beginnings are overrated
I do best when I don’t know where I’m going
(originally published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Winter 2023)