today was one of millions
of days I needed to be alone
a cloud of stars outshining
the world on the eve of its end
the dishwasher cycles through
around its own reality again
forget the parables
your knees are cold
here’s an elegy
so many mothers giving
to children we want
to please them
(originally published in The Magnolia Review, Summer 2018)
Every night Mom drowns
in loud TV next to dusty organ
bloomed with portraits. Family’s
family, including things:
the security system greets her
when returning from the store.
The red carpet, the torn couch,
the gunky dishwasher. Coming home
from work through a sea of dark Ohio
into a reverberating house of off-white
rooms so silent the garage door screams
shut. The floors don’t creak, they wail
and faucets cry. A cabinet full
of Cabernet. A corkscrew hangs,
rusted at the hinge.
(originally published in Oyster River Pages, Summer 2018)
beer half past noon listening reading
to sam sax’s on alcohol poem
after the final line in one hand
a bottle to my lips my body a future
compromised
i promised mom i’d outlive her
& it’s going well so far
but these low-hanging clouds
are moving fast and there are drips
of sky becoming foggier
sara says we shouldn’t have drank last night
a monday
but the beers at woodlands are bargain $2 drafts
o genie whisk me to an open field
with flask construct a crumbling house
at the center where i lay drooling the day’s
indiscretions
my mouth a volcano
concrete spat into my palms
the heaviness of me
drops
(originally published in Flypaper Magazine, Winter 2018)
Quantum physics have never been
more real than in this steaming
silver pot of Annie’s shells
and cheddar butter and milk
I’m cooking and the cat in our house
attacks crumpled-up balls
of paper yet sprints in fear
when a toilet is flushed. We are
all in orbit. You and me and
Earth and spoon in pot
mixing components into
tornado and I don’t know
where the melting butter
ends up nor the cheese
or where I’ll be in ten
years or a thousand
because our atoms
can diverge into
two paths any given
moment
THE FIRST PATH
the one where you and I and most our friends and family are still alive
because ten years is a long time someone both of us love has died
it’s my father I see dandelions on the dead a suit and tie something
he never would have worn & your mother her silky dress and
Avon perfume wafting through the wake the frost her
permanent winter bed
THE SECOND PATH
the one where you and I and all our friends and family are still alive
because ten years is a long time someone both of us love will die
I see a bowl of ashes I see dead dandelions wilting on the stove
the steam carries souls up into my nose where I recall the heat
and depth of the Grand Canyon sun pressing against my
neck Dad in his thick glasses & sweat arms around me &
I pick up a stone & throw it over the edge
(originally published in The Courtship of Winds, 2019)
electricity in the breath
of memory– the back-
country home mom
owns an endless vista
she has men care for
due to spine drooping
a road on her body
leads to membrane and
dad alive in the sky
looking down on her
fields purple or blue
the empty driveway
anyone’s welcome to
(originally published in Apricity Press, 2018)
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)
to cut immigration
is to cut me half
-Filipino I am already
halved quartered diced you take
a knife to my mother she keeps
a knife at her neck we both are
American in the blade of the word
I used to pretend to be more
my more-accepted half
to have to choose
is to have nothing
(originally published in Serving House Journal, Fall 2017)
my mother logs in
watches lives unfold and bend
others offer words of glass
water droplets
like there used to be something there
something that refreshed and renewed
(originally published in The Stray Branch, Spring 2018)
mom’s hair grew thick
with words she couldn’t say
occupying folded spaces
on the dark fabrics of her skin
and though she continued
eating heavily the fruits of life
the mirror told her stop
(originally published in Steam Ticket, Spring 2017)
Live a long life, son. Eat noodles on your birthday.
Al dente. Do it every holiday, so I can live on long
past done spaghetti which sticks upon the wall,
frozen in time against the whims of dun sodden
dust and entities beyond the sounds of crying
from the bathroom at 2 A.M. beneath the black-
dripped canvas of luminous lights. The grass, uncut,
reaches far now above the frizzy tips of your hair
(originally published in The Birds We Piled Loosely – Issue #1)