Pounds of Turkey

I am tired of lunch meat sandwiches
the cold beasts breathing down

my throat of history
harkening if not to past lives

then my previous ones too
sitting alone in Mom’s kitchen

the green and white table
under malfunctioning fan

with a clink in its swing
Wonderbread from Acme

could have been from anywhere
but the taste is familiar if not a burdened kind of sweet

I’ve moved to a Schwebels brand of cheap
wheat always on sale always lasts

for weeks until it’s eaten
this food chain lawlessly evolved

(originally published in The Field Guide Poetry Magazine, Fall 2023)

Hyacinth Rose

there are many flowers come across paths
alongside apartments but nonesuch like the

hyacinth rose wrapped tightly as such stands
outside a tiny market in view of black-grim

graffiti reading with a smile worth at least fifty
fifty-cent avocados because spring lays beyond

the peel of skin like waking up to jumbled
white sheets with the knowing of presence past

white walls hanged with stationary song which
would sing if only strings could strum themselves

(originally published in The Bitter Oleander, Spring 2015)