Your laugh could knock civilization out
but you are too modest.
I spent time at the cafeteria alone
at school. Red trays quivered.
On film sets I can’t look up.
How tight is the lighting rig?
When I apply that logic
to our place in the universe–
it’s too cold a stone to live alone.
When your soundwaves reach me,
in my solace, from the moon
or Mars or Mars, Pennsylvania,
I want my life to begin again
and I want you there
the whole time.
(originally published in Ephemeral Elegies, Spring 2023)
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)
After Matt Hart
seems like a good time to say
I spent months feeling helpless
looking forward
to this indeterminate light
we’ve been dreaming about
this industry
affects people
like a natural disaster
rolling through our days
until The End
rejuvenates us
makes us hungry
for The Beginning
a road trip a flight
a movie night haven’t
had one of those
in a while a cold
drink to jolt me
alive alive
until the dead
extend a hand
to bring me back
and I reach
for it too
(originally published in Delta Poetry Review, Summer 2023)
Tara, the arcade was not the answer
(air hockey shots & bowling) such
fantastical surrendering with hollow
hunger & the terrapin match /
between dinosaurs Maureen was
drunk & screaming. typical
punch bowl. red & strung
with lights I lied about my blue
ice I said I did not have enough
but I drove to Taco Bell next door
& ate five soft ones texted
you I made it (though I live somewhere
different now) home if I move
how will the wind know
the difference?
(originally published in DREICH, Fall 2023)
I.
After these exhausting days
who knows why I yell to no one
the things I yell on the way
to my car after work: gravel
grass and hill road buzzing
in the deepening sunset.
II.
The only relief I ever feel
is sunlight on my face
when leaving work–
the temporary confusion
of unsheathing one
unwanted part of me.
The breeze
greets me
like a once-friend,
my name
on the tip
of her tongue.
III.
Each minute– each second– beyond
when I am supposed to leave
wilts me. I look longingly out
the window mud-
stained in sunlight
I did well in the past
to ignore.
IV.
I get upset
having to spend
the remainder of
my meager self
racing
the end of day
light. I fight
my way through
traffic lights,
red in surrounding
eyes– to arrive
at my familiar
steps, already at
the foot of dawn.
V.
Morning
has that air
I like– half-
asleep possibility,
a natural neutrality,
a newness only possible
half-dreaming
beside the waving
branches.
VI.
Tonight, I spend my time
on an ice cream cone
with you. Under the full moon.
It makes my teeth hurt
but worth the work
a random hour a week
or two ago, when I was
sitting at my desk, wanting
nothing more than to come home
and see you.
(originally published in Statement Magazine, 2023)
I saw you meditating
in the UPM’s office shades pulled
lotus on speckled carpet
you caught me wondering
if you were tranquil I felt terrible
though the door was open I was
an arrow piercing peace
that single moment I don’t know
if you ever think about it
your spotting my gaze lasted one
second at most my mind runs
reruns just tell me you’ve forgotten
in the chaos of casting hundreds
of extras for a scene canceled
by sudden rain
(originally published in The Broadkill Review, Summer 2021)
at Tessaro’s after a long sunless
January mumblecore weekend
beginning no one to vent to
Pittsburgh bars of cig smoke
without windows I can barely
come up for air in the work
in which we say it all works
out in the end despite wanting
a cigarette having given it
up years ago just to again
(originally published in Nauseated Drive, Winter 2022)
I cut cookie cake with plastic butterknife
a birthday my age is showing not my celebration
in the office a long way to the center I repeatedly
say I slice some New York pizza I shape
a biscotti I am the awkward focal point
struggling through the cake rock my boss
offers me a Swiss army knife I refuse
she swears it’s clean the PEOPLE want
a show they want to see struggle I
bellow hands shaking through thick paper
plate after plate she says I’m impressed
you didn’t break and my piece is
so sweet I can barely eat I
do it anyway the work
I put in deserves dessert
(originally published in Squawk Back, Fall 2022)
You age and dye clothes the actors
wear, and when the old thing breaks,
we talk a washing machine between us.
I hold company money– someone else’s
wealth– without knowledge or specialty.
You say the replacement must not have
sensors. And you must be able to
manipulate the water level. These, you say,
are the only requirements. Everything
else can be jazz. Copper chords I
know. I riff on melodies in my head.
Soon the machine will have to be
unhooked, and I know little
useful of hoses, washers, inlets,
pumps. If it were just about
water– and shapelessness–
I could close my eyes
and submerge. But
it’s about spin, the pirouette
inside that makes it work
after the basin fills with
soil and sweat, a
pool of clean chemicals
and dead things all
scrunched together–
close the lid to hear
its tender agitations
before its heartbeats
turn frantic. The cyclone
within gathers wind of
frantic thoughts that
entertain the idea of
waking one morning,
fresh off a sharp night-
before fight in the kitchen,
and ripping all clothes
off hangers to jam
in a suitcase so that
when you wake, too,
you’d see my clothes
as a hole where they used
to hang and you’d ask
what are you
doing / what are you
doing? and I swim
up to the closed lid,
telling the world
th-thump, th-thump,
my fingers prying
and pulling.
(originally published in WordCity, Spring 2023)
When you see me on screen–
with blue jacket and plastic
glasses– listening to Zach
Woods brainstorm a plan
to pivot Pied Piper into
an app that can attract
rodents– like the fairy tale,
you’d think this guy on TV
is one lucky bastard.
But you probably didn’t
notice, because you don’t
know me, and you see hundreds
of people on screen
living the dream every day.
And you can see me in season
two and the first episode
of the show, ever–
the very first scene,
during the Kid Rock
concert– on stage with a
hundred other extras, and–
at the time, I had
just moved to Los Angeles,
and the background roles
I had been cast for
resulted in me
on a projector!
My friends at home
who got used to me
no longer being able
to meet them drunk
at Highland Tavern on
Mondays were now not
completely surprised
to see me rewindable
in their living rooms.
I felt destined for great
things, marked this only
the beginning, like
everyone else chasing
dreams in the city of angels.
But all I could afford to eat
were packets of beef
ramen, boxes of blue
Kraft mac and cheese
with water instead
of milk– no butter.
Hard-boiled eggs
kept me alive
long enough
to come home
to show friends
who were getting used
to me being able to
meet them drunk at
Highland Tavern on
Mondays my favorite clip–
with blue jacket
and plastic glasses,
I listen to Zach Woods
brainstorm a plan
to pivot Pied Piper
into an app that can
attract rodents–
like the fairy tale.
(originally published in Statement Magazine, Spring 2023)