St. Petersburg in January

maybe it is not seeing-eye dogs training
in the grass I pass or the street vendors
selling sunglasses tamales and watercolors
or the waves that touch a difficult nerve
which snap me into a more relaxed reality
or the toaster-oven croissant at the French
bakery on Ocean Avenue but the cranes
that lift off skyscrapers in the heavy wind
that make me want to punch real estate
developers in the jaw or somesuch non
sensical violence bear trap tourist trap
somewhat Floridaesque my happy life
on blast it is dynamite at a luxury
construction site this weekend

(originally published in Artvilla, Spring 2023)

Trying to Make Friends After Improv Class

up treacherous stairs at the end
of January to sit in the hidden
room at the back of the Tap
where we question west elm
shelves the green-lit décor
a chicken bone and Catholic
school what I have learned
is instead of being funny
just talk about triangles
hanging on white walls
the weird will happen
math emotions a geometry
like which-year-Texas-
Instrument calculator
you wrote 80085 on
was it 84 was it 83
what I learned everything
is improvisational
the drink selection
the sidewalk ice the
weather our atoms
bouncing off each
other’s atoms in
quantum uncertainty
where will this go
if we sew shut our
fervent minds and
listen to what we
don’t know next
will ever happen,
ever

(originally published in Stickman Review, Winter 2022)

Sunshine Daydrinking

I need to break the association
this first day over forty in January
sun wicking everything orange
and melting snow     which had mountained
around Columbus     this past year’s been
climbing     an unending goal since I gave up
drinking       through a Lent that lasts forever

I stopped believing in God early on
and instead chose to believe in sacrifice
first my health     now my vice    the nights
when I lose myself in another religion
in rapid ascent up blackout mountain
waiting for the harness to snap

 

(originally published in Edison Literary Review, 2018)

Getting Sober

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)

After the Lancaster Beer Festival

I want you to read this:
my night was the endless Niagara.

Love, flowing along sediment
of bones and thorny breathing,

ends on a brown couch of dog
and cat hair nice against my jeans.

I woke there next to a loaded potato gun.
Can’t stop writing dirty things

on the Buddha board
hoping you will read them.

If not you,
anyone.

My bones’ silence
breathes thorns.

And the message always
erases itself.

 

(originally published in Serving House Journal, Fall 2017)