Stepping out of their pool,
wet feet dripping onto
afternoon cement–
luxury sunglasses,
soft and floral swimwear,
perfect voluminous
hair.
Over the fence behind
them– the Instagram
background– vines
drop, dangle, gaining
strength in the sun.
Skulking forward,
their shadows
take from their
own darkness.
(originally published in Ink Pantry, Summer 2023)
The clouds induce trance on the drive
home from work today. White sheep pile
atop each other on a ranch in Montana
until the weight of an oncoming storm
that never comes except for a stub of
rainbow that peeks from behind far hills.
In the open stretch of highway it reveals itself
as a rectangle floating in the middle of cerulean,
squiggly lines across it, a glitch of physics
my phone cannot capture. I text you from
the middle lane– soaring eighty– because
you love rainbows. You say you walked
around our block but could not find it.
When I arrive home I am filled with unknown,
spiritual vigor. We split a red, frozen pizza
then leave for a journey following our favorite
clouds above, on high alert for the rainbow.
Guided by pink translucent clouds in blue
outlines, you ask me holistically, what are your
career goals? I can’t stop searching upward,
awestruck by the air and rare beauty
in the world, in the center of our elevated
city of bridges and transitions and roads
that fall into each other in chaos you
must understand to survive. The sunset
is somewhere and I know our clouds
obscure it. I know my career involves
sacrifice but I am chasing film’s thrill.
The whims of our uppermost winds!
I have taken you along.
(originally published in I-70 Review, Summer 2024)
Let’s go to Wildwood and get lost in
the rough waves of September. Stand
further from shore than ever, where
water’s shallow, sand firm though
fine enough to spiral into thoughts
where its strength dissipates and you
sink into a rough wave. Sometimes
what you need is to be pummeled by
the Atlantic. If you are not careful,
you could drown, but in the cerulean
calm of caesura, waves break all
around and forgive you. When
it is offered you want the air frigid
in the warmth of your sequence
of days so it can thrash the
fragileness of body and you will
not know what you have craned
your neck for. You’ll pull out
binoculars to view onlookers
on a distant, speeding sailboat
and you will see your life,
how fast it will pass.
(originally published in Stink Eye Magazine, Fall 2022)
Your laugh could knock civilization out
but you are too modest.
I spent time at the cafeteria alone
at school. Red trays quivered.
On film sets I can’t look up.
How tight is the lighting rig?
When I apply that logic
to our place in the universe–
it’s too cold a stone to live alone.
When your soundwaves reach me,
in my solace, from the moon
or Mars or Mars, Pennsylvania,
I want my life to begin again
and I want you there
the whole time.
(originally published in Ephemeral Elegies, Spring 2023)
I am attracted to power
the sun is a battery and I bask
in a ruse of energy or chemistry
in my worn-torn pajamas
and constant wanting
to leave the house
to see some birds
with a warmer destination
in mind or casually
run into an old friend
and we will ask how
the other is doing
for a total of five seconds
before moving further
into our respective drifts
of time forgetting
the tentative pizza plans
we had just talked about
forgetting the ice cold
air around us that rises
up and only gets colder
and I am lifted too
arms first
until I latch onto
the wings of a plane
which knows where
it shall go and
my whole life
has been like that
following the whims
of whatever
carries me
further
(originally published in CultureCult POWERLESS Anthology. Fall 2024)
at Grist House the day is everlasting
& we have just lived
through a pandemic.
August sun shining
I feel like an emperor
owning the day
til its end
the sandwich trucks
& hot dog carts
all of my life is good
we have just lived
through another
week under
shade of the
everlasting days.
in all my life
how many
days
will
I ever
get to feel like this?
a hundred?
maybe
in only eighty
years I need to
count
my inventory
(originally published in Statement Magazine, 2023)
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)
Show a baby grass
for the first time
yes
there will be more of that
(originally published in SAND, Spring 2023)
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)
I was asked to write a poem
to read at your wedding.
I have been writing for weeks.
I don’t know what I’m trying to do
but I know it’s something new.
Mostly the poem has become my life.
Mostly it’s a poem of longing
for what the poem in me longs for.
Mostly it is a poem of the fight between desire
and desire.
Mostly it is a poem of desire
from the poem’s point of view.
Maybe the poem is a poem of love.
Though like most loves, the poem is a little
exasperated.
The poem seems at the moment
to be in the middle of a struggle.
The poem says the poem is struggling.
The poem says it wants more
than this.
The poem wants to try and try again.
The poem wants you
to write a new poem for it.
It hopes it will then write a new
vow.
I don’t know why I made myself
the center of this.
I don’t know why I seem to be
the only person in the poem.
How’s this: I said I was going
to love you forever.
I believed it.
I believed in it.
I didn’t expect the word forever
to seem anachronistic.
What do you mean,
forever?
Who told you
the wedding poem is for you?
Who told you the wedding poem
has to mean anything?
The wedding poem is a poem
about the poetry we dream.
I see you on the stage.
You are on the stage with me.
You found a poem you loved
and someone reads us its vows.
We try to see the future.
We try to see the poems we are
even though we might not know them.
We try to see the future.
I try to see the future.
We try to see a poem about to happen.
This is a poem about the dream.
I try to see a poem about to happen.
This is a poem about to happen.
It has become a poem for you.
It has become a poem for me.
This is a poem about the poem that isn’t
yet.
I struggle to see a poem
about to happen.
I struggle to see the poem about to happen.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)