each time a glass is raised to mouth & drank
each time it’s clear water’s the last to go take
a river under forever dry ground a waterfall
bounding from nothing the sky is ocean
we drink it falling filling another cup
to restore us where to place this treasure
& we live we break the faucet
(originally published in WordCity Lit, Spring 2023)
Whenever I meet a person
I like to think there is
a string tethered between us.
Not a cobweb or rough
rope but a violin, or a cascade
of violins, the song within you
within each person, too. I see
you in this coffee shop across
the block; thus, we are connected,
intertwined forever whether you
go to the space station or not
and I am stuck in Akron,
cursing God as ground-
dwellers do. Inhabitant of the heart–
in this world of small worlds,
this blue sunken sea I’m clung
to you at its depths, you cling
to me with the urchins
on your shirt, the breath
in your lungs my own,
each molecule moving
the way we together move.
(originally published in Poetry Salzburg Review, Summer 2023)
half-sunk in a bog you take a photo and I say no
no no not quite like Amy Winehouse but if we sing to
a hedonistic youth I want to enter every swamp
and declare my love for alligator bites you say
you’re taking an artistic risk you swear will pay
off because yesterday after rent you went
to the post and mailed a hundred letters to a hundred
lovers I held your scratched satchel you said would
become the mark of our marked love and there isn’t
enough space in this world to become expendable
not with seven point seven billion hungry
humans all seeking something different
(originally published in San Antonio Review, Winter 2023)
If I don’t watch it, this lake
is vodka and I won’t care I don’t
know how to swim. Getting sober
is like that. I go out into the world
and look you in the eyes and say
I’m fine. I’m having a good time
and you go on never knowing
I was half-underwater, that
there was a monster trying
to make its way to the surface
and I had to push him down.
(originally published in Rattle, Winter 2018 – nominated for Best of the Net)
Want
led us
to this
world
of cameras
in palms
capturing
the world
without
knowing it.
(originally published in Gambling the Aisle, Summer 2017)