My whole life has been a joke
just how I want it, laughing
whenever inappropriate
societally. Not to be a
monster, not to redefine
sadness, grief, frustration
already a kaleidoscope of
every temporary state
of water, how every
time the sky strikes
an unlucky roll of die
to fail I laugh instead.
(originally published in Alternate Route, Spring 2023)
My hand gentle on the vibration of DQ’s back.
We ascribe memories to animals. Anthropomorphism
is our system. Kingsford’s scent lies on fewer and fewer
surfaces– we vacuumed his hairs, changed the covers
this August of grieving, and in bed we say
the living one dreams of her human family. If ever
there was a before in this cat’s life, if ever she could
recant her past to us– what I hate about the cage is
not the sick animal inside it, but that I can’t explain
where we are going, or why, just he needs to trust
me, beyond all his mewling (we pass a fish truck
on Penn Avenue in sunlight) – trust me: where
we are going will end your suffering.
(originally published in Kalopsia Lit, Spring 2022)
At the bar, I ask if you want shots.
You say, no– 2X, so I ask is that Dos
Equis? We laugh, then you tell me
2X is an IPA from Southern Tier.
When I order PBR you fire back
I don’t do that shit anymore.
At our table you lean into me,
staring at the red, paint-splattered wall.
You say I went to school with someone
who was killed in the shooting last
weekend. I think– there were two–
then ask if you’re okay. You
cock your hand on my thigh
and lift your bottle to toast me–
our clink of drinks a cold hard
cheers to the body of a rifle.
The skin through the holes
in our ripped jeans is heavy
against each other. You whisper in my ear
the world has too many people.
You shoot to the opposite
side of the table and ask,
how many people have you had sex with
who are dead? I say none that I know of.
And knowing you want me
to ask you, too, I mouth,
you?
Your smile loads a magazine,
amber bullets in your eyes–
you flash me the peace sign.
(originally published in Red Eft Review, Summer 2020)
I can’t talk about money I have none
I am green in love in the black in life
the debt of my ancestors I am
someone’s deficient ancestor
though my family is dying
one at a time deeper
into ground and deeper into soil
the sound of my sister
sobbing though she can’t be here
at the funeral she would if
she could
there’s always next time
(originally published in Ariel Chart, Winter 2021)
The summer shattered the year
Dad passed, and Mom’s grief
became the fall; to cope, she
wrote her first poetry, wrote
sheets of ice that turned to
winter months of seeking
meaning in icicles– living
alone, she praised the blades of
cold above her door, believing
Dad her angel sharp enough to
pierce the heart of loneliness.
There was no Thanksgiving
that year, no Christmas.
The frigid core of family–
she kept writing our story.
She would not let us forget.
(originally published in Z Publishing’s “America’s Emerging Poets Series: Midwest Edition,” 2018)
[the comedian approaches the stage in sunglasses
and a shiny black and green robe.]
Knock knock.
(Who’s there?)
I am.
There is no punchline.
Listen past your rush-hour heart.
I am up here breathing heavily.
Listen: I want you to laugh
and never stop. I am trying jokes
you did not know you wanted to hear.
I searched coast-to-coast for lands
who laugh with me, that tectonic shifting
from belly to chest.
Why did boys like me bring ladders to school?
We wanted to learn mountains and rarefied air.
To find reservoirs of laughter waiting.
What did 0 say to 8?
Nice belt!
(I don’t get that joke!)
But I want your holy, exhaled noise.
Relax.
What do you do if you see a spaceman?
You laugh. He doesn’t know what he’s doing here.
What he’s doing anywhere.
I offered myself to the ocean–
the entertainment industry.
She did not want.
The spotlight hungers for no one.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Why wouldn’t the chicken cross the road
if the chicken intended to cross the road?
Most everyone I know crosses the road
without looking both ways these days.
I do not call them chickens– they are my more realistic friends.
I want to make them laugh.
If you’re not laughing for me, laugh for them.
We are haunted by too many things:
dead friends, dead family, dead love,
dead strangers, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.
You can be someone’s haunting sunlight.
Someone’s champion jester dispersing their marbles too good.
Look, a magic trick!
[he throws two playing cards onto the floor]
How do you catch a unique rabbit?
U nique up on it.
How do you catch a tame rabbit?
Tame way– u nique up
on something enough to latch onto–
just a hinge’s creak
before the mouth’s swing open, closed.
Some of us never leave that darkness.
The silent divide.
Laughter will bring us close.
I mean it when I say let’s laugh until we die,
even when what we laugh about isn’t funny.
I mean it when I say if you see a space, man,
park your car, man.
It’s over.
(originally published in The Magnolia Review, Fall 2017)
A river isn’t really blue. The Mississippi
has dried, and even love is transparent.
We adorn ourselves blue so loss
can be quantified in color. Such
is the brittle paintbrush, naked
and grieving, but we are not
the color of grieving,
nor tobacco spat in the dugout
in shame. We remember
the dirt, and who we loved,
long before we searched
clouds’ faces for ghosts,
her grays in the white
within eternal blue.
(originally published in ‘the vacant hinge of a song’, courtesy of Origami Poems Project)
they found water there, so we can move to Mars–
red planet god of war never knew the need for mercy.
the milky way could use another arm,
another trillion, twinkling stars, a slow phase
pregnant with planets bearing
tall pines stabbing pink skies,
white mountaintops a cold heaven.
in America, communities die one tragedy at a time.
our rivers are rancid and oxygen is halitosis.
maybe we’re dreaming, drinking
through sunrise– that’d explain our inability
to reason, expecting god to save us
from a doctrine
more widespread than bullets.
maybe we trust too much– the way
we comfort the grieving, a surplus
of prayer, words passing the breeze.
there were clumps of dead leaves before autumn began.
it’ll be beautiful, what then.
the season will kill and kill.
we’ll mourn our addiction to mercy,
wonder if it’s worth it
to bring a child into the world,
shuttled from her innocent rest
to our blood, soil fresh and familiar.
what’ll autumn do, then,
with winter afraid
to enter a landscape
already dead?
(originally published in The Derails Review, 2016)
Thirty-five years and fingernails
darken, blacken from walnuts
and the cracks of hammers, the coming
of dawn, clouds wrapped in thunder–
the fruiting spire, the pear-toned
light, the front lawn fire, charcoal
grass, green peels ripening– ripe–
soft–
red Helix stagnant, lonesome, remembering
the wet-leather thunderstorm days
cruisin’ seventy,
the human box of organs and history
holding rubber handles
treaded like hieroglyphics–
interpret me. Listen.
These are the words on the bathroom stall
fingernail-scratched and ignored
What Will You Remember?
Not the stories told in tones softer than television
(originally published in NEAT., Issue 7)