I know we need to decompress because
there’s a multitude of zeroes airplaning
from our mouths while a jet drones above
and my heart is 01001010010 you tell me
your dad had a heart attack at 30 I hear
murmuring between my valves throat
clenched I want to kiss you but the
world is on fire and I want to turn
you off and on and off and on again
(originally published in Picaroon Poetry, Winter 2019)
& 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)
Pepper burned my mouth
and all I could think of
in that salivated flame
was you telling me your tongue
no longer felt the heat
of a moment: meaningless
sex– bite and garment
here between the green
walls of your zen room
your small goldfish
swimming in circles–
submerged flame and hunger
for love so intense
I flicker poems to you
thumbs on lighters
waiting for the matchbook
to catch– combed pomade
hair, designer jeans, and wit–
what I want is origami
and fire– instead
we talk about love
but unlike Raymond Carver
we have nothing
more to say.
(originally published in Words Dance, Summer 2017)
I watched us turn into centipedes,
not butterflies– tiny legs to run
pushed out of us, not wings.
In half-moon light we crawled
the hollow ridges of our bodies.
Someday, we thought. Children.
But it was true: neither of us knew
how to bloom. We kept scratching
at the other’s skin digging
for the beating heart
but only exposed the blood.
(originally published in The Quiet Letter, Summer 2017)
hang a horse
watch her body pale
& slacken
I want a California girl
thin legs
skin smooth as shale
the horse
my gallop from
stable
a race
no one
will win
(originally published in The Blotter Magazine, Summer 2017)
You generally enjoy your dreams, Taurus,
but not this last one in which your lover
invites her Iowan ex to your house
and they wear your jeans while
you yell at cabinets of lipstick. There
are layers of red on each wall’s face
and you run outside after her
Honda yelling at its exhaust
along cornfields of mid-America.
Meanwhile, in real life, you
two have yet to get in a fight.
Maybe you should do that soon.
(originally published in Yes, Poetry, 2017)
We’re eating Thai food, like we were supposed to do yesterday,
and I tell you that spice level, I couldn’t handle but next I know
we’re walking through alleys shoulder-to-shoulder when you ask
when you gonna talk about the real shit? And we keep on, sun
dipping to avoid the real conversations and I know this box of Stella
in my hand isn’t strong enough to make me start, but in my house
there’s honey whiskey, and I ask if that’s real enough but no,
too much sweetness. We drink anyway, ice falling from freezer
to floor as I reach for Old Crow to hurry to some kind of real talk,
the kind we couldn’t find on our walk to Giant Eagle
but there are bonfires too hot for our hearts in the real world,
a tinder of paper and logs we decide not to learn the names of
and we’re drowning whiskeys, beers, and slow small-talk
telling each other about exes to the flame’s orange humming
and that’s real, I thought, but not real shit and so the hanging lights
are unplugged and we’re searching for stars through clouds of smoke
and we talk about how little we know, how far we want to go
but beside you those stars don’t seem so far and in the swirl
of darkness we kiss, realize that’s the real shit
until we open enough to tell each other.
(originally published in Cease, Cows, Fall 2017)
Wish we were as patient as my car.
To drive four hundred miles not
needing to stop. To go seven hours
over grayscale roads and want
to talk to you still after.
We drove a long way but got
stranded on the side of
a southern highway, scared
from too many October horror films,
from lasting even this long.
(originally published in CircleShow, Summer 2017)
we walk parched lips from downtown
to the jazz & rib fest you tell me
you love too many at once
I count the number I love at the moment
but we lose track of headlights
following the other’s every move
neither of us know how to get there
how to make music & when we arrive
jazz is faint & we don’t listen to sporadic notes
choosing to walk the bridge over the river
under spotlights of webs of moths
between railings & you say insects
are the most important creatures alive
the more of something there is the better
all these millions of arachnids spinning
webs to eat the hearts of bugs they always catch
we stand away from the railing because we
don’t want spiders to creep onto us & start
the work of eating through skin to dig to heart
we don’t look at each other because
you can be in love with so many at once
but not the ones who want it most
(originally published in Edison Literary Review, Summer 2017)
fantasy world
castle door
sword glistening
at night
in this world
I love you nestled
on lumpy pillows
reading Tolkien
dim light
bed mirror glare
we must sell
everything
gloves
fingerprints
musty pages
grandma gave reading
buried imagination
rich with vastness
& escape
(originally published in Oddball Magazine, Summer 2017)