After we leave, me and the photographer,
cramped in my car, talk how it must be like
to live to be ninety. How free and young
we are to zigzag the curves of Laurel Canyon
near bullet-speed, windshield wipers
screeching in rare California rain.
(originally published in Open: A Journal of Art & Letters, Winter 2022)
Street sweeping
happens irregularly
around here. Every
three months then
you forget about it.
I’ve been off and on in love
with my roommate since the
day she moved in. November
rain, the red-bricked road,
I look out my window–
no cars on the side
of the street I parked on.
I scramble from my room,
her boyfriend in the hallway,
and I yell street cleaning!
His eyes bug up
and we race down
stairs to beat the tow
trucks but I open the door
to see cars parked around mine.
I tell him I’m going anyway
to check the signs–
which I do in my blue
flip-flops, waddling out into
wet grass to find
next week’s the sweeping–
and don’t we always
wait yet another week
to cleanse ourselves of what
we fear we don’t need?
A bad job
or incompatible lover.
For months they have fought
about necessary changes
neither of them will make,
and just last week
she told me
the cycle of her life
goes in years by threes.
The job, the lover,
the house, the dust.
There’s a chill. I’m not wearing
a jacket, so I go back inside
and tell him it’s next week–
but he’s known this for weeks.
(originally published in Columbia Journal Online, Winter 2018)
Dad knew which fuse box switch did what–
in this way, he chose for us the light and dark.
His hands blackened from cracking walnuts
over the years, hammering husks in the
night when the rest of us were sleeping,
loud whacks startling us temporarily awake then
drifting back into our own darknesses beneath familiar
stars. After his death, we found Dad’s walnuts
in barrels in the corner of his workshop alongside
spiders and memories we could not yet scrape.
My brother said, to honor him, we had to break
and eat each one, despite the bulk. That Dad lived
a rich life poor, that the taste might activate
memory’s accordion, careening us in and out
the past and present, turning life to death then life
again, discordant in its forlorn loudness.
(originally published in 3Elements Review, Spring 2018)
The movement
neither initiated.
The joysticks dance
in orchestral unison,
taking turns missing
the light on the screen.
The proximity advantage
of cooperation.
Our feather jackets brushed
and the crowd howled around us,
moved in herds – an infinite number
of lives in which to press
the red kick button. Not a red
exit. Not to drink water in excess
of the salt, shake it over,
shake your damn hands and clap
once, clap twice, shiver in the
thorn-wine applause– let us
shiver within our bones.
(originally published in Kaaterskill Basin, Spring 2018)
I.
the overhead light is a python shining into my eyes
this office is hissing: drills, rotors, a hanging
S at the end of a passing sentence.
they have taken so many x-rays
of my mouth these past few weeks
there the infected tooth stares back
in its gray and black graveyard,
deep in its flaw
II.
the doctor numbs me with needle
puts a cloth in my mouth, a cape
to make my face a superhero.
it’s an uncomfortable placebo
makes me think of super-strength
defense as she scythes the pulp out of me
III.
the doctor says god,
this is a pulp boulder
I have been looking toward heaven
digging and scraping many silent minutes
IV.
a drill
bats squeal and fly from the cave of my tooth
V.
the assistant tag-team switches for
a different assistant
the doctor says we’re finally getting somewhere
on the radio:
♪ like a virgin. touched for the very first time ♪
VI.
the scent of bone
or blood
or gum
or healing
VII.
the assistant says she visited the chickens last week
cute as dickens
I learn chickens have no bladders
and no bone marrow
and here I hold my urine
VIII.
the doctor tells me open wide
shoving cotton in my mouth
♪ shout, shout, let it all out ♪
IX.
they’re trying to figure out the actress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
the doctor holds a scalpel over my mouth
the name at the tip of her tongue
After an eternity I offer
Hahdrey Hehurn
I did my part
they’re proud
and there are no complications
(originally published in Off the Coast, Fall 2017)
spilled honey clings to black wires
connecting the world my lifeblood
laptop nestled in her shell safe from fingers
goldenrod shirt covers the old burns
the pinewood ashes coat my nostrils
the harsh wind blows crooked conifer to the verge
almost to fracture the window waiting
to kaleidoscope glass a body as canvas
hardwood red lust to cleanse gathering dust
rain pats the chair-infested patio drips of
laughter boomerang from slippery brick
and the blonde coughs from beyond the dark
halls of shed fur & grime
(originally published in Freshwater, Spring 2018)
When a system is given
an initial input of velocity,
it will vibrate freely
upon release. The ground
will undergo occasional
displacement. In running,
we invite earthquakes
with periodic force. In leaving,
the engine drives
with rising speeds.
In real systems, energy
dissipates. The system damps,
often unnoticeably. When friction
ends, the memories displace,
and your face becomes
a jumbled mess of cables,
of mouths in wired eyes
so tangled by the heart.
(originally published in The Magnolia Review, Fall 2017)
the gorge is endless & insatiable
there is a river, then many mouths
& there is your mother
in the next room cooking soup
& there is a mother
on screen bent over stovetop
with stepson rocking back
& forth into hunger
& now spoons clank
on plate before dinner
& your privacy settings–
a closed door
& now your father
home from work
& now the stepfather
makes his daughter behave
& your sister
walks in off the bus
& now the step-sister
removes the mushroom of her skirt
taking her brother by the name
of their familiar
revelation
which is all relative
to the mold of a home
all mildew & dust
spiderweb & tangle
& turn of doorknob
to walk years
through thin hallways
of broken light
fixtures & coughs
to sit in the dining room
all together & eat
years of steaming
garlic, basil, tomato,
salt
(originally published in The Cerurove, Fall 2017)
& part of her phrase of course is
if you can’t handle me at my worst
but there’s a left turn into darkness
no one wants to take &
the signal’s jammed so no one knows
the direction anywhere anymore
just a mirror of the night
reflecting night, a ninety
degree warming sadness glued
onto a body. one silhouette
low into evening, a heat repenting
unknown sin, a snake slithering
out from its hole into you
(originally published in Gyroscope Review, Fall 2017)