the leaves are changing and so
is our relationship the bare arms
exposed green and red forging
forward to the next when you want
the open road it was always what I
wanted though I’d never admit that
hurtling toward work the everyday
mundane our infrastructure finally
I do not know what is beyond
the next bend construction cones
over grass long forgotten words
another dead deer on the left side
of the highway where I have
traveled often just to get here
(originally published in Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, Fall 2024)
highway
Falling Rock
As soon as a stone (from where,
who knows?) cracked my wind-
shield during a delivery I quit
my job as a driver. I zagged
right from the highway’s
middle lane to the median
and set the car in park,
but could not control my thoughts–
chest throbbing, engine thrumming.
I had to step out and breathe
before I could convict the
quartz intending to harm me.
All smooth and small, I was not
sure which was the right rock,
scanning gravel to see several
similar enough. But the wolf
among them, I know, wanted to
break the glass, blind me
and puncture my jugular, only
for me to be saved by a surgeon
who would never fully believe
the story. I avoided death this time,
alive on the side of the road, looking
back in search of a falling rock sign.
(originally published in Bond Street Review, Winter 2021)
Broken A/C
on the highway heading home
memorial day weekend sweat
takes my shirt off lets the sun
roast me through open window
wind fanning I’m so hot I say
to each friend passing before a
calm stretch I slow down horses
merge into my lane in a white
trailer why the long faces oh
they are way hotter than me
(originally published in Erothanatos, 2021)
Mid-Ohio
Wheels spinning,
the tanker trailer bears
down the highway.
The buzzsaw precision
of power structures–
thin, bald trees–
wheels spinning
in isolated towns–
American flags
flat and paved,
70 mile per hour signs
close and sharp.
(originally published in OVERHEARD, Winter 2022)
Semi
I often disappoint myself,
though half-reckoning is
a wreck in the making.
Insensitive interstate a
random number generator,
impartial to chaos. This rush
hour pileup from heart
to mouth. I say I love you
like it is always summer,
but today marks fall. Why this
world spun me into Pittsburgh
eludes me. This is not a yearning
for old light, coated in cinnamon.
I laid my head on your chest
and the rest happened like history.
(originally published in Adelaide Literary Journal Anthology, Spring 2021)
Your New Life in Columbus Via 71 South
backward signs gray silver
curved necks of lights and opened arms
reaching reaching reaching
not high enough
not low enough to grab
American Cab out of business
blue 333-3333
Sinclair
Morse
cops on horseback
off to Wendy’s Arby’s Tee Jaye’s
down High
down low
all this green and exit
you must enter somewhere
(originally published in Central American Literary Review, Spring 2018)
Scenery
My roommate takes me
for a walk, or she takes the dog
for a walk. It doesn’t matter.
It’s the second night
we’ve walked each other,
or the dog walked us,
sore throat, brainy fog,
and this time can’t even find
the moon, obscured by houses.
We look anyway, together,
comparing bloom to doubt,
how one is sure, the other
grows, and leaves
crunch beneath as the dog
stops our walking
to pee, to leave another
thing behind. On Sunday
I watched the Niagara dump millions
of gallons into itself, mist rising
into something, nothing. The moon
loomed huge over the bridge
to America towing sunset’s lavender
bed but you can watch a thing die
before your eyes, or not at all–
the way, driving back from Canada
in heavy traffic, I tapped you
on the shoulder on the sky bridge
and said, look, here’s something,
one thing beautiful left, look,
and took the world’s last magnificent,
proffered blue and there, as a passenger,
you refused.
(originally published in The Knicknackery, 2018)