Columbus.
Victorian Village.
Coming home.
A dog sometimes.
Desire.
Living.
The squeeze.
Without thinking.
The act.
The thinness of good.
How much regret.
At a party I said it.
Stung.
What?
The direction of history.
A rough shore.
To never return.
(originally published in JAKE., Summer 2024)
Love
Sixth Anniversary
As dark as this February has been
we still drank roses underground tonight.
We ate our fill of chestnuts and napa,
carried egg tarts uphill
under a rare, green comet,
and enjoyed the new taste
at home.
(originally published in Last Leaves, Fall 2023)
To Kingsford (From DQ)
You knew my name, pulled me
from the dark. How many times
have I died? How many alive?
I was a ghost. A breath. You
caught my scent. Made me flesh.
(originally published in Sybil Journal, Summer 2025)
Forty Years From Now, This Poem Will Make Sense (Disregard if Forty Years Have Passed)
I am sentient
enough– half-
asleep at the
wheel
I already
miss you
if I miss
my turn,
misguide
my controlling
hands into
another lane.
I have a tote
of sorrows
lugged
into a luggage,
third floor closet,
plastic blue bag
crinkling
in the night.
I wish–
I want–
you never
to read them.
This is a message
to me
from half
my current age–
though revelation
is what
I want
to avoid,
it is now
(was?)
true.
(originally published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Fall 2023)
Bottle
corkscrew splits when prying loose
coppola‘s aged cabernet sauvignon
you once opened a bottle in a hotel
with a flatiron i bring down a steamer
the bottle perspires with no release my cat
nearly walks into the heat i’m thankful you are
present my spine so soft can’t keep anyone
safe best not dwell my memories
are triglycerides clinging the tender
parts of brain we go downhill to rite-aid
we’re told it’s barren look elsewhere
a beer store closing the clerk in desperate
gasp seeks three screws he can use
to make a tool makeshift but alas
the shoe method works he says take
your boot pound with force try
as we might against my home’s brick no
way to get how we feel into the open
(originally published in RUNDELANIA, Fall 2024)
Scalloped Potatoes
Now I have time
to experiment
preheat the room to three twenty five
saute the onions in butterflies
pour in garlic and butterflies
milkwhisk the butterflies
scrape the wings off my heart
and wait wait sixty-five to eighty–
to say what I have to say to you–
I can’t wait another minute.
(originally published in The Gorko Gazette, Summer 2024)
A Light Snow Through the Window
Out of all activities
to do in the world,
we choose to watch
what melts. The sugar-
frosted grass, low hills, love
of our red-brick building.
If our conversations
are jet streams, if high-
altitude, high stakes,
tension– let me
please leave and be
reborn as something cold
and forgettable.
What dinosaur wanted
to become a fossil?
In our years together
we accumulated enough
to burrow deep into
the earth. Millions
of years from now,
what some sentience
will discover is that
we were once separate.
(originally published in The Field Guide, Fall 2023)
Tamales at Andrea’s
At her Penn Hills home an endless view
of rain green wide windows. With sink hot
faucet water we tear banana leaf a piece
of wallpaper press the masa they prepped
into dried dark a sturdy table.
Drop sauce, fork pork, wrap ribbon
makes pride and we learn to live
again. Almost a year still fresh
the big bowl of dead animal we gather
around. Andrea says steam in leaf
adds floral flavor, a life
to death jiggling within us–
oh, sweet touch of camaraderie,
hugs on a late December
Saturday. You were afraid
we started the day too early, but
we are in our mid-thirties. I wanted
to begin yesterday the festivities
that let us remember why we
remain alive– brown butter cookies
and the love, so much love in the living
room. When we get to the presents–
having already unwrapped our proud
banana leaves, there are Penguin
classics, band t-shirts, soy candles
but what we’d trade for anything–
white elephant– is more time.
(originally published in Triggerfish Critical Review, Summer 2024)
Jar
I crack– then leak–
always expecting honey,
hummingbird, candy. Look–
I want to be with you
in health and heartache. But
I know the sorrow that eats me,
I see my eyes, and you, the one
who loves them– in countless
shades– you ask me to keep.
(originally published in Ariel Chart, Spring 2024)
I Want You to Think of Me All the Time
My partner says I want you
to think of me all of the time,
leaving knick-knacks: glow-
in-the-dark stars on the ceiling,
Miami Collection Post-Its,
a mylar balloon unicorn
that is thriving. She props it
on my lamp so it’s in my face
when I need more light. A kawaii
bumper sticker on my iPhone.
Hand-drawn cards in the drawer.
But I see tumbleweeds of dog hairs
and dust in the corners on the floor.
I find strands of your black
hair in my beard. I leave
last week’s dishes for not-my-present
self to find and when I see the balloon
on the lamp, I get it: you know
what keeps me going.
(originally published in Tower Poetry Society, Spring 2023)