You tell me it doesn’t matter
how much mercury
you consume, as long
as the pleasure is worth it.
One day, you say, we’ll buy
sticky rice and salmon, dirty
our hands in the sink
then soap them– we’ll
remove the dead fish
scent from our skin.
(originally published in U-RIGHTS Magazine, Fall 2020)
Cramped in that silver
nook by the kitchen
was how not to know me.
The panini-maker pressed
pitas onto various vegetables
that were consumed and
capitalized. Chickpeas
churning in the high-
grade processor (with
special red spice).
Carrots in the juicer,
bananas in the blender,
hearts on dark trays headed
to tables by the window
overlooking the snow-
plowed parking lot. I dropped
wine glasses all week
and would you agree
it was too much when
the army came in
to sweep glass
off the floor?
(originally published in Stick Figure Poetry Quarterly, Spring 2023)
Mom is from the Philippines;
she has been American
forty years. Made a habit of white
rice and chicken. So I was never
vegetarian. Home of meats
and starch– broth for breakfast.
She never taught me traditional
dishes; I only ate
what was given. Can’t speak
Tagalog– last I heard,
she’s trilingual and I am
thirty years old, eating French toast–
bread in cream in butter. Plus sugar.
I must be American.
(originally published in Madness Muse Press, Fall 2020)
we feast at the counter
by the spotless sink
Wayne says his dip
consists of things
that wish to kill us
ranch cream cheese
and gouda
we’re like great
preferring this
to powerful people
who don’t know
us
yet wish
to kill us
(originally published in Train River, Fall 2020)
there is no wrong way to eat
a hot dog there is no right
to eat a dog there is no hot
dog hot popsicle of pig
meat slathered in existential
ketchup bread-claustrophobic
*
once on a drive home from Central Catholic
I stopped at the Dairy Queen Drive-Thru
and asked for hot dog wrapped in lettuce
I was more hypochondriac at sixteen
than at thirty-two anyway the kid
at the window said they couldn’t
but I insisted and the manager
smuggled the long sizzling dog in wet
lettuce I carry that shame in the trash
bag of my trunk to this day
*
pig meat
pig meat
in a sleeping bag of green
*
there is no way to eat a dog
there are ways to eat a hot dog
I am a bog I am the bog I am
breakfast lunch dinner brunch midnight snack
everlasting bun communion holy
water life I down through days and lick my fingers
after rough vigorous handwashing
I’ve opened plastic package
set skillet to flame
lain logs on drizzled oil
*
the celebrity chef in my mind
is me I documented cooking when I lived
in my car. That was my true potential. Oh, swine,
you’re years beyond capable
yet I drove halfway across the country
to do what competitors do, which is down
hundreds of you. Joey Chestnut the undisputed
master after decades of dogs.
*
Went to a dollar dog minor
league game twenty cents per dog flies
buzzing in orbit of condiments
five the limit at the window so all
could see I had the buns. One each for
STRENGTH. ACCEPTANCE.
CONFIDENCE. GRACE.
AMBITION.
*
One inning was all
it took and I was alone in my new
city full of my father’s love
of baseball and barbecues. Now
there was an undisputed grill master.
Everyone knows one. I am not one.
There is no way to cook.
There is a way.
Wayne was over and we flicked
lit matches with our middle fingers
from thumbs into ready
charcoal to get the grill going.
We walked away and waited for
an action-movie explosion
but there was no ignition.
*
My whole life I have been walking
away, not turning back to look.
(originally published in HAD, Summer 2022)
Another gray sky day, empty gas tank worries in the countryside
nowhere don’t you long for my touch? Oz runs just far enough
for the bone against the backdrop of my outstretched arm
hand out fingers extended & I don’t know where I stand with Jessie
except she must find me pathetic as she walks into water under the
influence of Dr. Dog & now she swim-dances the past three days she’s
walked along the rock edge of the pool. & now I need to text Tony Z.
what’s a man most afraid of? I’m getting used to inadequacy. Oz brings
his bone to the other side of the fence. Jessie says she misses the green,
the pool purified at the beginning. Sara throws pong ball through
the hole of a lime lifesaver floatie and a butterfly metaphor soars
above the water. Have you ever almost drowned on drugs? I don’t
recommend it. The lesson is gravity’s not the occasionally falling apple
but the drifting leaf toward the other side, whatever the definition. September
third and we just got our first sunburns. Hannah leaves the house after
work and like a magic trick, three pong balls appear in the water
and the sun reveals itself a moment. Oz lays in the grass in front
of me before a philosophical discussion about casserole and how to cope
with beans bought at the beginning of pandemic we will never eat.
(originally published in KNOT Magazine, Fall 2021)
The host stares blank pages at us,
mumbles in the vicinity of lobsters
in that overcrowded blue tank.
The waitress sings the menu,
points to CrabFest (overtures /
variations) – we are here,
always, for Cheddar Bay Biscuits,
the perpetual stream birthed in wire
baskets that make our intestines scream
minutes after paying
the check.
It is July 6th and fireworks explode
over trees
and, of course, we think them gunshots
because we are in a public parking lot,
our bodies full of grease that could drop
any minute in this America,
two-thousand nineteen.
(originally published in Toasted Cheese, Fall 2020)
“They’re not deviled eggs
because Lucifer was once an angel.”
-Anth
At the bar you order
a small white plate
of celestial eggs.
Holy mayonnaise
yellow topped
with chives.
They are gulped
except for the last,
which you offer me
through telepathy.
I am the egg.
When I stop throbbing
is when I live
so I hold it high
in our five spotlights.
The arena cheers.
I see many doors.
Five floors:
on the bottom, death,
but each row above
a plethora of possibilities.
In your car, you say
I am feeling unmoored,
my shoe half-out your door.
The renaissance is what we
make. It is brown paint
over everything, the oil
light– you ask, what is on
your mind? I don’t know
how much you know
but I felt the warmth
of the machine beside me
thrumming on the street.
You were on the phone,
I think. I glared– I think
the end is coming
faster than fresh ideas
or the universe’s
rate of expansion.
The fact you drove
saved me from running
through the dark city
in the center of my existence.
In the shadow room
inside my house,
I did not process
emotion. The throbbing
sprain in my foot.
It was that death
issued a rain check
when I smacked my head
in the basement bar
of the indie theater.
I was the movie
everyone watched.
I left everyone waiting
for me to emerge
from the sewer. I swear
I will not group up next time.
I want each synapse
comprehended. To succeed
would be the stretchy fabric
of my living. Nylon
for the brain. Procrastination
for the ascent. I say you need
not worry because I am not
worried. Depression is a shovel
deep in soil and I am buried
in my mind, thankful
to be given a second
heaping of kindness
when I never deserved the first.
Hard to learn you
when my body is uniformly
jagged and growing
hairs sharp like knives
eternally out of every inch.
I want to be soft
with you, but once
we eat, all mysticism
is lost to process.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)
I expect mountains! Unrealistically
my brain brims with possible
outcomes: you’re late for work
again in Aurora, Ohio, the passing
green whooshing around you–
all I fear is accident, the casual
mistake, the narrow passage
of time I waste still looking
in west’s general direction,
like I could cause a change
in the wind if I willed it, if
I asked God for a second
helping of mashed potatoes
at my mother’s lonely house
that sits in a dark gallery
at the edge of my– our–
relentless American street.
(originally published in monologging, 2022)
I am tired of lunch meat sandwiches
the cold beasts breathing down
my throat of history
harkening if not to past lives
then my previous ones too
sitting alone in Mom’s kitchen
the green and white table
under malfunctioning fan
with a clink in its swing
Wonderbread from Acme
could have been from anywhere
but the taste is familiar if not a burdened kind of sweet
I’ve moved to a Schwebels brand of cheap
wheat always on sale always lasts
for weeks until it’s eaten
this food chain lawlessly evolved
(originally published in The Field Guide Poetry Magazine, Fall 2023)