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)
downtown
Ramen in Japantown
I had been eating like shit living
in my car, fingernails full of fungus.
We agreed to meet in Japantown
to enjoy a fancy ramen
but this would be my first
in many years
that wasn’t Maruchan
(cheap crinkly plastic,
cancer-flavored beef-dust
in a sawtooth packet)
& you must be aware the body
struggles to digest it.
During our meal,
two years since
we last talked,
the cheap ramen must have
intermingled in my stomach
with the pork-broth
real deal. I put an egg
on top for authenticity
when you told me you had
just bought Coachella tickets
for yourself & your brother
& I didn’t want to know the
price because I was living
on wages made on the days
I was lucky enough to
find work. Umami
lingered on my tongue
as we ruminated
in silence over
how vast the distance
our lives traveled
in different directions.
(originally published in Triggerfish Critical Review, Winter 2020)
Last Memorial Day
We walked to the Cultural District to be
at the jazz festival & basked in the sax of Nubya
Garcia beside men on mushrooms grooving
underneath eternal heat, sweat in the air
everywhere. It was a rare off being free
to roam in the spring-summer-autumn days
of Lone Wolf. This year, we seek public stairs
down the warehouse side of Liberty Avenue,
past the church turned brewery & power
plant we nearly lived across from. Above’s the plentiful
hill with blue water tower, where we pretend the mayor
lives inside its steel blue dome with all the rich hidden
in the hills with their crow vision. The community
pool is empty. The boring streets to drive through
are the interesting ones to hike with uneven brick &
ramshackle storefronts never noticed. Here’s a record
shop for anarchists. In this decrepit year we look to fill
my head with chaos to make sense of the field around us.
We have been walking & walking the sunset magenta
over Bloomfield Bridge yet summer seems a year away.
(originally published in Selcouth Station, Spring 2021)
I’m Fine
I’m with Lex at Lockview
ordering tomato soup because
I just got out of a relationship.
I tell him I’m fine, though he never asked.
The bowl arrives alongside my Kentucky Bourbon
Barrel Ale. I slurp red and talk loudly
for the cute girl at the table behind me
wearing all black– we made eye contact
waiting for tables between entrance and exit–
she doesn’t hear me, probably,
but my friend watches me cremate crackers
over the bowl to spoon the goo inside.
He says slow down but I say life moves
fast– hell, I ingested magic mushrooms
after leaving my ex’s place then Lex
asks our waitress for his grilled cheese
without mushrooms and the waitress asks for menus
but I hand her my bowl and say take it please
take it then tell her I’m fine and it was wonderful
being in my house alone after this happened standing
on the kitchen table beside the silver chandelier
lined with black mold and dirt and how
I waited for anyone to come home
and no one did so I kept standing.
(originally published in OVS Magazine, 2017)
Polyamory
we walk parched lips from downtown
to the jazz & rib fest you tell me
you love too many at once
I count the number I love at the moment
but we lose track of headlights
following the other’s every move
neither of us know how to get there
how to make music & when we arrive
jazz is faint & we don’t listen to sporadic notes
choosing to walk the bridge over the river
under spotlights of webs of moths
between railings & you say insects
are the most important creatures alive
the more of something there is the better
all these millions of arachnids spinning
webs to eat the hearts of bugs they always catch
we stand away from the railing because we
don’t want spiders to creep onto us & start
the work of eating through skin to dig to heart
we don’t look at each other because
you can be in love with so many at once
but not the ones who want it most
(originally published in Edison Literary Review, Summer 2017)