After we leave, me and the photographer,
cramped in my car, talk how it must be like
to live to be ninety. How free and young
we are to zigzag the curves of Laurel Canyon
near bullet-speed, windshield wipers
screeching in rare California rain.
(originally published in Open: A Journal of Art & Letters, Winter 2022)
When I tell you of my existential crisis in the shower,
of being frozen in the rain of hot water and steam,
afraid of being alive inside a universe that perhaps has
only a limited number of consciousnesses to hand out
like a bowl of Halloween candy in the dim porch light
(don’t knock, just take) – why was I born with human
privilege? I could have been a beetle hiding from
bombs in a country bleating with siren and flame.
Why this panic as I soap myself inside the pleasures
of plumbing? You tell me you don’t know if I exist,
and it’s funny a figment of your imagination would
be sowing doubt upon your own living. I tell you it’s
funny a figment of my imagination says the same, which
you say sounds like something an illusion would say.
We drink Lagunitas in a beam of window sunlight. One
of us will live forever in the simulation of our sandbox,
the black cat floating on the wobbles of my knees, purring
softly into dark sweatpants discernible from nothing else.
(originally published in Subnivean, Winter 2021)
After reading five food poems in a row,
I paused, told the audience I get inspiration
from food. I meant I get energy, really.
At home, sometimes, I sit at the table
eating noodles and suddenly
I am at the table eating noodles!
I look at the floppy strings
on my plate and ask myself
what I’m doing. Converting
loose ends to energy, according
to education. Google tells
me to stop eating so many noodles
but to stop means less
energy– the will
to go on. These laces
tying my stomach
consumed by gastric acids
transform into aminos
that fuel me, somehow,
these noodles that don’t
make sense but somehow
allow my string of days
to keep dangling, serve
me on a plate so that
I may exist, so I can fall
in love with someone
and they can fall,
too, and steam
until we cool enough
for them to stick
their fork in me,
then wonder, what
are we doing? The
fork swivels,
gathers
a tornado
of noodles.
(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Winter 2019)
I don’t remember what I said but it stuck
with me and we laughed and sometimes
we saw the future full of starfish clinging
onto timelines we never had because I left
corrupt with stinging jellies I ate of them
often the sea the seaweed the sticky floors
I understood what we were stepping on
(originally published in Bitterzoet Magazine, Summer 2018)
I cracked an egg
with a butcher’s knife
watching yolk seep
yellow cracked surface
rough on my hands
two halves and a spill
in the sink
I have a whole
carton little hopes
silent things never
living never words
I open
each heart to beat
to whisk to swirl
and wish a tornado
in this bowl of force
and gale in golden
pool in cauldron pan
and spatula pressing
hard over white turned
head caked edges
center sliced over
all this heat blackened
burnt but good
enough to eat
(originally published in SPANK the CARP, 2017)
The bowl is where
the howls come from–
OoOoOoOoO!
A broken-record werewolf
in this microwave-boiled,
tomato-red September.
I have been trying to form
the words to say to you
with only a vowel.
When you left
for some knockoff white-hat,
greasy Chef Boyardee
I went to the zoo
to study manatees,
but they, too, are a migratory
species. I saw the first of its kind
take on a mangrove but emerge
fish-in-mouth. She floated to her
friend or brother or lover
and squealed syllables
until the other swam away.
I guess no one communicates
with each other the proper way
anymore. All these sounds
these OOOs and Os
processed uneaten
(originally published in The Oddville Press, Spring 2018)
got a heinz bottle full of regrets
but it’s dried up as the crust of red’s
lost its use you try to squeeze something
from an old heart and look how flappily
it beats sags and wheezes yet I got a cold bag
of wendy’s to share salted and soggy
on our porch in december rain I said
to go to be tax-free and carefree yes
but on the swinging bench white-bagged I see
your face in wendy’s and your eyes some
sad fake black pocket’s full of lint and loose change
and can’t stop sliding my hands in to feel my legs
burning with desire to get up and build trash
cans from scrap at the edge of the yard
then wait for the passersby
to throw their guilty pleasures in
(originally published in FLAPPERHOUSE, Fall 2017)
in the blue diner
we laughed
made something meaningful
but how you puckered
your lips
didn’t mean you need
communion
I am
trying to make my way
down High street
without kicking every red hydrant
I walk by
without drowning in wish
without
finding meaning in every stop
sign
every green light
turned red
I’m finding out greasy fries
aren’t made to be shared
they clump
onto the salty plate
every intersection
is just an intersection
avoiding cars
strangers
every passing honk
is for you
I was not made
to philosophize
words
mean nothing
until spoken
(originally published in Nixes Mate Review, Winter 2017)
dishes are an exercise in repetition
why do we go through our days so quickly
we must be unhappy with material possessions
more specifically
how we sustain ourselves
I am amazed I have sustained myself for so long
teenage years of french fries and ice cream
adult years of french fries and frozen pizza
there is nothing that greases my heart
more than eating macaroni and cheese
naked at 2 am
when I am bloodless
pots and pans hang on hooks on the kitchen ceiling
the landlord says our water bill is exorbitant
I think it is extraordinary
the parts of ourselves
we must pay for
steam billows out of the dishwasher
when it is done
we pay for that too
in august we chopped heads off of asparagus
rinsed our hands of the green bits
blue antibacterial bubbled white
champagne bottles cling to the wall
someone please set them free
so we can keep that bent and dying orchid
on our kitchen island
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Autumn 2016)
the ponytail blonde in the banana sweater & black leggings
floats in some fiction world she belongs in
then asks the librarian a question I cannot hear
she shrugs when she speaks
(reluctant windmill)
she figure-skates her slow, shelved glissando
(fantasia of the no-talking zone)
I am writing this poem when
she shoots past my table
with a green hardcover book–
I did not catch the title
or ask for her name
so I am left with
only my words:
anxieties
I find harder
& harder to
decipher
every
day
(originally published in Viewfinder Literary Magazine, Summer 2016)