I am not this negative.
I look at Post-It note
days and see a march
of white beneath, my life
before me on corkboards,
dilapidated. I used
to joke easily in this junk-
yard, chasing wayward
clouds in the sunset,
in awe of our city’s
little skyscrapers
over shards of broken
bottles on asphalt.
And you’d join me,
too, running across
the parking lot,
the cars rolling
over blue bridge,
roaring, as we
were under it
at the mercy
of an aged
but comforting
infrastructure.
I don’t know
if I have changed,
or if the world
is wearier, how
I don’t even
look for the
weather when
I open
the door
to leave.
(originally published in A God You Believed In, Fall 2023)
film production
This American Factory
Work snips years
it abducts me
from living
and the drinks are heavy
after
in my liver
my tenuous body
if I could live
in a less-consumed way
outside
with the grass
not overgrowing
my head
in the mountains
with a beach-blue
overlook
and while I’m
fantasizing
I want a bug force
field to keep
the pests away
I want to glide
over the landscape
a less-ambitious Magneto
breathing in
high-altitude sea breeze
until the stress is gone
and I deflate
into the ocean
though I don’t know
how to swim
see
even my daydreams
end with darkness
(originally published in The Wise Owl, Spring 2023)
Production Dinner, 2022
I.
tonight it is free to clink
glasses with luxury
at the steakhouse downtown
my first
Manhattan
since Day One
I have been
red meat squeezed
of all its blood a puddle
at your recommendation
on our plates a weight
to our long
day
but hey
a hundred bucks?
you produced The Hunger
Games
& film’s
a hungry hundred days
believing
the dream is not a struggle
II.
trout on dry
land among
the cattle
wriggling
out the net we lose ourselves
in work
yet
gorge
on appetizers
bacon-wrapped around
each other
the shrimp
is not taboo
nor endless
with buttery bread
I can’t end
this twelve-hour
shift
III.
I long to spend
free time free
but you close
your eyes when
you talk to me
like you can’t
bear to sit
at the same table
in the down-
trodden way
I say hey
this could be
my favorite
restaurant
over and over
to no one
(originally published in bluepepper, Spring 2023)
Commonplace Coffee on a Sunday in July, 2021
Masks encouraged. Totes hang on mustard
walls, all checkered. We’re in shorts and summer
shirts. I touch the bristle of my beard.
We’re allowed to now. To sip my rough mocha
between the gaps of my teeth under the hanging
honeybee lights, people all around me touching
their own faces.
(originally published in San Antonio Review, Winter 2023)