Nothing to start conversation with
but the glow of television, hors d’oeuvres
the crowd devoured and I could only stand
and gape at the electric wiring strung along
the ceiling that led to the hanging light
fixture, a metallic apple dimmed. I wanted
to talk about architecture but felt wildly
inadequate due to the bricks missing
in my brain, hammers clanking where
words should, my mouth full of nails.
(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Summer 2020)
Home is a little bit blurry.
Mom, I swear to you, it might not be
July next time I see you.
Your digital face is a little bit blurry,
but our lighthouse will always be
the one light in dark through memory,
right? I want to climb the ladder
to surveil the roof. Home has
become a wall of atrophied faces.
(originally published in The Writing Disorder, Summer 2021)
you ask where we should
go and I say drive me
to my car so you
drive me to my car
because I tell you that’s
where I live and of course
you wouldn’t follow
up on this my Ford
Fiesta still smells
sweaty even though
I rent a home now
a compact is too
small to fit what
we’d have to
live with
(originally published in Nauseated Drive, Winter 2022)
lost last night’s gold after the Adriatico’s pizza
guy gave us a tip: wait
for me to leave
strummed strings past afternoon stairs
mozzarella between our teeth hands on hips
lips and tongue
I was your favorite human for one night out of a billion
you said and said kept me a dice roll away my bedroom just
a flick of your fingers
(originally published in 8 Poems, Fall 2019)
past the corner of this house’s Kubrick architecture
on the couch a bundle of eyes
a slopping visual stain
but it’s true. my vision is blurry
I spent the walking sidewalk
grapes inside my right cheek
thinking how I want to win you.
so romantic, you
with a stranger in my house
about to
dine on the fruit of
ancient gods and I am laughing
now to have the ghost
within my walls, my green
heart long and longing
lunging out my chest
it sticks to paint
like spaghetti
(originally published in streetcake, Summer 2018)
Inconsequential some things I remember–
each World Series winner
of the past forty years or, say,
brushing my teeth last month, blood
in my spit, then finding the measured
infinity of my eyes in the mirror.
I forget most things about my father
most days.
Sure. I remember
the gray-red beard,
his crooked back, faded jeans.
The freshwater scent of Polo Blue.
And those brown, gentle eyes–
but his voice?
Mixture of sediment and tire
smoke rising from gravel,
a ‘55 Ford Thunderbird fading from view.
I started journaling to remember better
but now write poems under dim lamp on my desk.
(Years later, you know which
one. Gold, curvable neck. A thrift store.
But you’re still no good
with the finer details.)
A waterfall of my father. Illusions
of life doodle-sketched
in some spacey lobe of my mind.
I wonder: do I give myself enough
credit? What’s worth remembering?
I am inside a coffee shop, writing,
surrounded by people I won’t recall.
I look for a subject. A gray, old man sits
on the patio with book and beagle
yet never goes inside to buy anything.
I pay for him. I pay him
in remembering.
(originally published in Wizards in Space, 2018)
Every night Mom drowns
in loud TV next to dusty organ
bloomed with portraits. Family’s
family, including things:
the security system greets her
when returning from the store.
The red carpet, the torn couch,
the gunky dishwasher. Coming home
from work through a sea of dark Ohio
into a reverberating house of off-white
rooms so silent the garage door screams
shut. The floors don’t creak, they wail
and faucets cry. A cabinet full
of Cabernet. A corkscrew hangs,
rusted at the hinge.
(originally published in Oyster River Pages, Summer 2018)
Her violin’s bow popped off the crowd’s
thin, bald trees–
it’s just too late to grow.
The next morning I called where you grew
and crawled these barefoot floors
of fingerprints and colors
and your name
(originally published in Packingtown Review, Summer 2018)
In Kathleen’s apartment in Oregon,
I ask her where even is home?
Clevelanders-turned-transplants,
maybe never knowing.
I see my mom’s mown lawn
in the green fields our baseball
team travels through, my friends
in tweets spitting scores or stats.
These, I don’t care about,
but I join in discussion.
Blue hands to high-five,
then to put my phone down.
(originally published in Hobart, Winter 2018)
& when you sleep (waking
life is not cheap)
I know our love’s worth
something
out on our back patio
drinking bad wine on Tuesday
& the dog can’t decide
which side of the glass
he wants to live
on, the wild & murk
or the safe & stone.
I’m living life under
fluorescents or artificial
light, got a wallet made
of air I’m thumbing through,
somehow living & learning
despite the change
or lack of– glass
clinks on bronze floor.
I’m saying I love the sundown
& evening air, my fingers
locked in yours, unloose.
(originally published in Panoplyzine, Winter 2017)