I need new faces
clothes drawers
opening
closing
I used to find
spacious greens
county lines
my hometown
I wandered
through the smells
of mom’s scrambled eggs
faucet running
disposal clogged
with garlic
understand
I want to be
a bullet train
memory
I’ll tell my future grandkids
stop moving
opposite
of me
(originally published in Neologism Poetry Journal, Summer 2017)
*Pushcart Prize Nomination
pills are your piggy bank & I know
you’re working on saving yourself
bit by bit every day, plastic bags
full of highs and highers but you
were hired at a Rooster’s you say
is good for your soul– congrats–
I’m at the Walgreen’s on campus
asking questions about your sugar-
coated drops of yesterday held
ransom by the holy words of
prescription papers circled with x’s
and your ex never saw it coming–
the resurrection of a person like
a monument erecting from sweat
and necessity then once you start
changing you don’t stop
(originally published in Slamchop Journal, Summer 2017)
the cable car seesawed in arpeggio
defibrillation of San Francisco’s
alien heart
her people palette
and a silence
of sea
a nod to the rain brought
by those who travel anywhere
where everything is new
(originally published in lit.cat, Spring 2017)
we ran headfirst into love
bricks stone cement
& blood
no glass in that window heart
the rhino’s horn
sharp and rare
I write about what’s not there
headlights foglights
I write to explain this love
this fast love
this rabbit-run hole deep dug
& shovels & shoulders
& salty skin drowned in tongue
somewhere over this hill is a burial plot
with our names on it
x marks our naked bodies
drunk on desire
& gin & no one
knows where our mouths have been
so restore the reservoirs
reserve a seat for me at the theater
let’s sit in darkness
watch the actors eat rare steak
& show love without talking about it
o how to enjoy your teeth sunk in blood
o how to finish what you started
(originally published in Jenny, Spring 2017)
I cracked my phone screen
on my first date without you.
I carried it in my back pocket, like always,
though maybe I postured myself differently,
finally sitting up straight enough
to carry my own weight.
I didn’t look at my phone
until after the date. By then,
I could no longer remember you
without the shattered glass–
the flawless screen was not made
from our blazing beach days
of black seaweed and slithering kites
that begged the wind to let go,
where footsteps parted sand
to lead the tide into ourselves,
to let the moon drag our bodies
into the ocean’s boundless mirrors
where, enveloped in reflections,
we could only gasp for air.
(originally published in Metonym, Fall 2017)
(originally published in Euphemism, Spring 2017)
yes i have
seen my neighbors
we disagree but shit
violins i’m saying welcome
cupcakes i’m saying
welcoming there’s the dirt
we both walk on trust
i’ve seen them
i’ve seen us too
(Originally published in The Neglected Ratio, Summer 2017)
the mylar unicorn balloon juts out of my moodlighting lamp
& won’t lose air sealed lips but the horn’s starting to sag
it’s not sad it’s entropy how slowly things around you deteriorate
I look at my unmade bed & puppy fur on the floor & the wind
beats at the window it’s the first day of spring & my voice is hoarse
with allergens so texting you downstairs & we’re scared something
bad may come of us that our own house will fill with mercury whether
in tapwater or shower water or the plug to come undone that causes
the washing machine to overflow and it will
(originally published in Maudlin House, Spring 2017)
You cannot gut a tomato without first
remembering the garden. The mud-rutted
fingers pulled at weeds; silver shovels spiraled
to and from the sky. The spit, the rain. It took months–
years– didn’t it, to differentiate? To grow into something
unrecognizable? You knew what this would become,
the way a person finds her own shadow
insufficient. A broken silhouette of scarecrow.
It was then I could not see you– with your bangs
of hay, the ground sprouting milkweed.
Those tired hands milled ‘til the sun had no meaning.
You wore dark clouds as a cape stained
with mud the work helped us forget.
(originally published in Ground Floor Drinkers, Summer 2017)
