Frisbee thrown by my brother at
our mother’s home, rising with wind–
he asks a question I can’t catch.
(originally published in International Poetry Review, Spring 2025)
home
To Sara (From Kermit)
This world you teach me is velvet
mice in your palm, on the carpet,
in my teeth, repeat. And the silver
crinkle ball that shines purple in sun
light that I cannot stop batting across
the floor. I sometimes push it into
that unreachable darkness underneath
the couch downstairs. DQ told me there
once was a cat who left and never
returned, and she thinks about him
constantly, expecting him each entrance
of outside light, and I tell her no, there’s only
me and you, and I run around the house,
seeking his faint traces. And she tells me of days–
long, unimaginable days– when no one is around
and you just have to bide your time and wait.
It seems so lonely. I run to her and
she screams and retreats into the Cavern of
Bags. I follow her in too deep. Please
tell me you will always be around.
I need someone here to complete
such important work, this
drive inside that bursts and blooms
its way across the corners
of these rooms I’m learning,
this love I newly navigate far
from small, stuffed cages
I used to think
was the world
until I met the space
within your affection,
a bond of greater
boundlessness.
(originally published in Unlikely Stories Mark V, Winter 2023)
Reruns
I sit by the fan
this May afternoon
alive forever
in the green
of our home-
made salad
(spinach, chickpea,
yellow pepper, tahini),
sore and sweaty
from carrying air
conditioners up
steep hallway stairs.
Using the heat-
gun and pliers
I straighten
my brain’s
antenna.
Our argument
becomes static
on a tube TV
in someone
old’s living
room.
(originally published in San Antonio Review, Winter 2023)
A Poetry of Place
Because Tony once said he knew
Columbus and Los Angeles the way I do–
I have not yet developed a poetry of
place for Pittsburgh. Three years in and
still the surprise hills, the way I always
feel– still– an outsider wending my way
through confusing streets. I’ve worked with
Kailee’s dad longer than I lived with Paige
and still we haven’t had a deep conversation.
Everywhere I go there remains a sense of some
thing deep that needs explored. The way
I walked Los Angeles streets at night–
the endless sprawl– must be the same,
but Pittsburgh’s smaller, the graffiti
more familiar, how it’s all a sketch of home.
(originally published in Vilas Avenue, Winter 2023)
The Percussive Life
I bang my head all day– understand,
the end is not an option until I run out
of time (I am limitless until the zipper
closes, so to speak, an asphyxiation of a plastic
bag, its crinkle and shimmer under kitchen light). New
home but I do not yet know how to live
in it. Such few hours
inside. I used to push
my palms against fresh paint until my hands were
red, a deadening so expected I could pass through
and bereave the light that emerged
from its center, gushy and dim, how I would press
my thumb to its heart and play its saxophone’s minor
note, the bed I’d sleep in and wake
in the night on rumbling tracks.
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Fall 2023)
This Old Table Means So Much to You
Ceiling leaks on mahogany plate–
nowhere for rain. The cat self-
cleans beside treble clef legs.
Roomba learns the floor’s secrets.
Purple grape stems. Vent dust
from the void. I left you a voicemail
on a no outlet road. I read a few pages
tonight. Shower steam dissipates
slowly into starlight.
(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Summer 2021)
Eyes (Mine)
If I tried to count how many nights I’ve wandered
alone to find myself, it would be on more fingers
than all my family has. If I were worried
only about eyes on walks stalking me–
if I hadn’t watched The Lion
King at seven, and my father hadn’t died,
and my brother– I wouldn’t be present
in this field of wild cleavers with my Mufasas
whispering weeds in the moonlight. Always
that breeze tickling the hairs across
my skin. That’s why I don’t walk
barefoot in the grass– I don’t trust strangers’
hands, so I count tendrils on everything green
in the dark that’s growing, wondering
if you remember how long it took
for me to learn to tie my shoes. The laces
multiplied in my field of math
I fumbled over. My hands, I could
never be precise enough to be
a mechanic, or a surgeon.
We were in the basement and
oh, you were so patient,
television glowing and muted. Dark
news and wave band static. These
negative film reels roll to nights
embedded in memory when I try
to sleep, when my lids are full
of images. I can’t believe I’ve stared
at the surface of the moon so many nights
over the years and just now saw
there is your face. My face.
(originally published in Hello America Stereo Cassette, Spring 2021)
New Year’s Party – Dining Room
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)
Blurry
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)
After a Date at the Culver Hotel Bar
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)