you ask where we should
go and I say drive me
to my car so you
drive me to my car
because I tell you that’s
where I live and of course
you wouldn’t follow
up on this my Ford
Fiesta still smells
sweaty even though
I rent a home now
a compact is too
small to fit what
we’d have to
live with
(originally published in Nauseated Drive, Winter 2022)
Culver City
The Overlook at Baldwin Hills
rarefied air
never spring
the way smog
sept into our lungs
on the couch hand in hand in
the same room breathing
the same air where there
are more heights to inhale
(originally published in SOFT CARTEL, 2018)
Brazilian Music All Around Us
We danced to the Pandeiro
Struck, shaken palms
thumbed words in metal
places we could not fit into
In Rio how the wind would drape
whatever we were hiding,
blonde wind strangling the
açaí palms, cavaquinho in hand,
your rabbit cheek strummed,
wonderland don’t worry
about whatever worries you,
whisper this dream with me
in syncopated beats
until we get it right
(originally published in Revolution John)
Pretty Autumn Sunset
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)