this country music’s gunshots slinging through the wind wrapped around Anytown, USA
where I’ve never been anywhere outside my own mind traveled everywhere within this bag of
skin and blood bound to family I become further and further away from each day I bleed out my
own legacy owned by money by the river by the body bags I see everywhere I see a witness
(originally published in Moss Trill, Winter 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)
the bleeding radio repeats the same
dead guitars their necks and bodies
another day strings stretch rained
bullets for old fingers to play half-
mast country white and blue so red
throats the shallow soundless holes
peered into to sing sand to bury
the chorus of another city’s silent
prayers God never intends to act
(originally published in #theslideshow, Winter 2018)
Christmas trees
buried
no gifts
nothing left
to unwrap
no one
needs these kinds
of gifts
no one sees
above the trees
look
there is so
much more
to be angry about
think of those
who have lost
the soup
steams the kitchen
sunken chicken
in chunks
salt boils
the tea kettles
green
the minced leaves
mint
leaves
the body
leaves
the mint plant
(originally published in New Pop Lit, Spring 2018; nominated for Best of the Net)
What you do say is prayer don’t burn and die
when passing through the atmosphere.
Yet, somehow, meteoroids do–
though sand-sized, they have bodies
like bullets, sometimes
copper, sometimes steel.
We’re talkin’ heaven’s ammo,
a hundred tons pounding Earth each day
unnoticed. Down here, you claim
able to speak with some cosmic, faraway force
you’ve never met while keeping closed your mouth.
You claim telepathy, so this telepathic ability
how your thoughts move healing this world
of the aftermath of bodies. Tell me:
how does God respond?
And you say God,
God protects the faithful.
So, God’s His own meteorites
cratering His house, hallelujah.
(originally published in Ohio Edit, Winter 2018)
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)
mouth sculpture in a gunpoint ell
little gunshot clicks and pops that
wound
when
wielded
well
(originally published in S/WORD – Issue #5)