California, 2014, in her brother’s
bed, we could have went home
but didn’t.
Instead, we cuddled and slept
in only underwear.
I woke up alone
to find her on the couch.
We nuzzled our faces before
finally walking into the sun–
already dripping wax,
feeding desert flowers
in its best attempt
to stave the rain.
(originally published in Euphemism, Fall 2021)
For Tarik
highway needles appear
fast white lines I bullet
along an aimless angle
fate a roll of die half my
life I have had my license
tonight asphalt is slippery
and tenuous when I spend
too much time alone only
the hum of engine knowing
tires hiss more air the further
I go do not devalue yourself
the chanting mass says my
head loud roiling in ninety-mile
-per-hour grief I did not know
Tarik as well as those who knew
but I miss him should have
called in this ubiquitous darkness
smoke leather peeling off my
ten-year steering wheel a passing
truck sprays my windshield
mist this sharp steady rain Reek
drove a convertible he may have
been drenched but he would
have laughed made it seem okay
if I knew his misery if I could
see behind his laughter
mask the off-ramp winding
curve onto the final highway
home in his deep empathy
Reek drove this stretch of night
after switching off his lights
(originally published in Fine Lines, Fall 2021)
the road to dream is knotted
tangled never broken
early mornings Santa Clarita
studio beneath setting moon
we talked bright futures
in film reel and photograph
just two in a crowd afraid
of its own shadows of
stepping out into the light
and not being recognized
yes we have gone our
separate ways love
and heartbreak heartbreak
and love cardinal singing
an evening song to lull us
back to valley open full
with ink quill and camera
and old dreams to dream of
(originally published in Agony Opera, Summer 2021)
We wait in the endless line on principle–
backpacks full of familiar belonging,
dreaming to get away. This past decade:
a years-long playback on one of those
stereos everyone wanted. A CD requiem
that spun, skipped, shook–
and is now obsolete.
(originally published in Winamop, Winter 2023)
Tune-lover, beachcomber sculpting
seashells from stones to listen for ripples (nothing
loaded but time) and I have written– haven’t I–
distance into oblivion (that tidal bass a metaphor,
its vastness deepening) & am I not a shell of was
once, was gripping to any mast to lose
the sea, change quivering– I swear– every molecule
of my being, I must (from the must) of any old
ceiling, the dust it lends to fading carpets,
the ones we walked and walk on today
(originally published in The Broken City, Summer 2021)
parking garage stone and yellow emergency
the microphone’s metal web against my lips
to vomit last year in haphazard dollops
of song, wolf, and waterfall dry music
career in loneliness this lifetime achievement
many-tailed and thick porous semiconscious
rambling strummed brown fingernails clacking
away at my hard reverberation of longing the car
window closed to keep the sound in
(originally published in The City Key, Spring 2020)
I reach out– longing for connection.
When surrounded by seagulls, I look
for the first semblance of friend. Not
that we have much to anchor anymore,
conversationally. Dolzani’s English class.
I didn’t read assigned books. Didn’t
become The Old Man and The Sea. So
many years to make safe passage. My voice
was a heavy, closed hardcover, whispering
through class as pages turned, and here
I am, strange and estranged, gazing out
over the Pacific, waiting for your response
on my seashell phone. Any sign of humanity
meant I would try. You never answer, anyway.
I unmoor my flaming boat to the coming
monsoon, scrape my hand against burning
plank to gather first ashes. I write my name in
soot. I hold my breath and swoosh into the next
life: the hold-on-to-me, the help-me, the drive-
aimlessly-through-your-twenties until arriving,
at last, at another confused island, a new
decade of drifting through cloudless nights.
(originally published in Cacti Fur, Summer 2021)
We covered ourselves in soot in my mom’s basement–
you told me you loved me but I had to move home
to have your heart. We dug holes in the backyard
but already too many buried bodies so I boarded
the plane, returned to L.A. to live at the foot of hills.
I said I’d visit sometime, up top, to overlook the ocean
I knew teeming with unspeakable life–
I could not say a word of it to anyone.
(originally published in Hamline Lit Link, Spring 2020)
Naked at the lake between salamander bodies, I kiss
your face, handfuls of sunflower on my nipples.
With mountains behind me (to my surprise)
I have become a bouquet. Verdant hills
a family– a cheetah must hide in this wilderness.
I feel emerald eyes ogling me from somewhere
in space time– even in this reunion,
I want to be as naked as a cloudless sky,
as the eroded stone I stand on.
(originally published in The Sock Drawer, Fall 2020)
the dead friend you are thinking of
says the sky’s no longer the limit
inside there are good spaces
between us you wanna press
the green button on your existence.
that is what he would have wanted:
to arrive. one day you will awaken
barefoot under a leafy blanket
in your dress shirt & blue tie
and he will live inside your eyes
the way ants share summer
crumbs
(originally published in indicia lit, Summer 2022)