sometimes curtains blocking sunlight
are only ghosts sometimes ghost light
in windows only a brightness beyond
the blue bridge I work beneath only
the bridge will lift us over the Allegheny
only the bridge will float us into the grit
of the city the people I used to know
I don’t know them anymore what is
a bed but unmade sheets soft silk
I must become a bridge to get
myself out of bed in morning sunlight
beyond the ghosts of days
I used to possess I was
a curtain blocking the trajectory
of my own light
(originally published in indicia lit, Spring 2022)
Film
28th Street Bridge
Every time I drive the 28th St. Bridge I always make the joke
to myself– should I really be driving on this?
It’s a paunchy punchline to no one and still I apologize for it–
a comment on the bridge’s chipped green paint and rusted
hinges, the (perceived) rickety short-distance, its creaking (I
don’t hear a thing). How close I’ve been to a laugh, some snicker
into an abyss– I’ve said much worse to people and not apologized,
driving over the strip after a fight with my lover, suspended
in the air a silence like tracking a FedEx truck with a package
you know will reach you but when? That apology– the tethering
between the space of sound, the hum of a hungry engine,
covalence of steel and structure bonding across a void.
(originally published in where is the river, Winter 2021)
Sixty-Hour Workweek
the work never ends got slurry
in my mouth called schedules or
points of reference for words
beyond words I say can’t
capitalize on limited resources
I have a tiny appetite you said
after twelve hours repeatedly
you are disappointed in the
remaining hours what’s sunlight
what’s wind got to do with well
being the highlight of my week
was assembling a black leather
gaming chair I like to wine
and dine in slow interior dying
(originally published in Rabid Oak, Summer 2022)
Buzz Burn
glass of prop champagne could
be a three thousand dollar shot
I can’t pay these costs the
moving parts all I want
is to buy you liquor an
André for us to drink
such fine and cheap champagne
in front of the camera I turn
to improv heroes and beg to
break the bottle I am stuck inside
of work yet warm in winter when
the bottle breaks I always crave
(originally published in Ink Pantry, Spring 2020)
Plot
This all is a script about plotting.
An achingly slow clock. Poetry
makes me want to be outside.
Perhaps what is best is how
words move me to a surface,
but I remain in my Arctic superego.
What I mean is I am thinking
of what people will say
to me, to each other. A plot.
A whole movie inside my head.
I act in it, not knowing
what I’m doing.
(originally published in Avatar Review, Fall 2021)
everyone wants the glory everyone wants
to not wonder where their next meal
will come from– cupboards empty
one day, adorned in gold the next–
to be instantaneous in transformation–
Pisschrist into Christ, prayer into
hummingbirds singing softly on your shoulders
(originally published in Modern Literature, Spring 2020)
Endless Imagination
The bowtie light switch has a mustache.
What does that say about me? I’ve spent
too much time seeing whatever I want
in office objects. Tape gun forklift.
Soap giraffe. All I want is to love
what I have however diminutive
the love, however diminutive
the day stretches out in consuming
all other days. My endless
imagination boards me
on its paper airplane,
the rock slungshot the first
time I read a book and never
arrived at my destination.
(originally published in OpenDoor Magazine, Winter 2022)
House of Miracles
I don’t remember the phrase, spray-painted
on a house in Wilkinsburg, that caught you
on the way to work some May or June day–
it couldn’t have been Miracles do happen–
too cliché. It was some unexpected inverse.
I remember you mentioned you liked to think
there was a man named Miracle in there
(this must be a clue) – the details elude
me. Reflecting, it seems miraculous to have
survived this haze of spring turned summer,
fall– memory’s the rain hovering over our fake
Centennial Park. I kept throwing sacks of dust
into the spot on the cornhole board that would
end the game, but as the game kept going,
the show kept steering to the opposite end of reality.
In my mind, this house–
wooden panels splinting, gray paint chipping–
was surrounded by overgrown grass
becoming harder and harder to see past.
You cut the grass, the grass grows faster!
This show was like that. Have you seen
the viral video of the tree just struck
by lightning? The inside’s raging red,
an orange flame self-contained, but
I like to think that tree was in Miracle’s
lawn, and he was zen in tending
to the heat and ever-growing grass.
But all the forces were conspiring–
twice the office toilet wouldn’t stop
running beyond reasonable control.
The first time was the first week, when
it flooded the floor and drowned
the executive offices. You sent me
to Busy Beaver to buy a monkey
wrench, but no matter how we turned,
the water seeped past carpet.
The second time was at the end. We had
all lived hell, survived it. The water was
relentless, but this time, when you went
in, there was a crowd outside the bathroom
door asking if it was over– the flood, the
show. This time, it was different. You fixed it.
(originally published in Home Planet News Online, Fall 2020)
Capstone
among the blue desks was a meager
audition for adulthood crumpled
into a mess of wooden shadows reciting
barbell lines on the film school second
floor (stair steps closer to Orion) how
I was dreaming young of the world’s
grand magnanimousness suffused
with balloons that smelled of palm frond
everglades my school-sanctioned camera
would record the nightglow trees by lights
of Coe Lake where it snowed pine cones
in the backyard of my mother’s house
where acres stretch forever rugs of green grass
and hunger the endless hunger for somewhere
anywhere else
(originally published in KGB Bar Lit Mag, Spring 2021)
Drowning in a Small Bowl
I play too much
in this ruin. Wing-
dings over profits,
always, despite ancient
language bleating over
the human market.
For what it is worth,
self-worth is not defined
by worth. The milk
is not transferable
to white. When
projecting nonsense,
be sure to include
my name in the credits.
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Fall 2021)