House Sitting in Los Angeles, 2015

Finn barks at the window & I try to understand why
make noise at the sunshine we are in the clear & inside

of our heads taking dirt showers beside the Pacific
we both are allowed in this home to live our lives

on all fours and from the couch watch the world
go slowly by

(originally published in Agony Opera, Summer 2021)

Pneumonia

My lungs have drowned in fluid–
I can’t stop coughing. Who am I

to survive in all this death
and pollution? Land-dweller, ill-

fitted? The sea regurgitates
its dead– whales on white sand

shores, fish entwined in kelp.
The old organisms– from where

we began– return to land,
beg us to let them walk.

 

(originally published in Freshwater Review, Spring 2020)

By the Ocean

As the tide heartbeats forth,
my lovers return in salt.

Silver-winged seagull loses herself
& dives.

Yesterday I thought
I would be in love forever–

today, whiskey on my tongue,
sand in my eyes.

I want to find every person
I ever loved within the waves,

how navy shuts
thin books of light.

The line between sand & tide
is awash with wings.

Salt burns my mouth
& I am drenched

in your foam, milking
the sea for words–

the sea swollen with stories
we never told,

words we
never said.

 

(originally published in Common Ground Review, Spring 2018)

Symbolism for a Millennial Breakup

I cracked my phone screen
on my first date without you.

I carried it in my back pocket, like always,
though maybe I postured myself differently,

finally sitting up straight enough
to carry my own weight.

I didn’t look at my phone
until after the date. By then,

I could no longer remember you
without the shattered glass–

the flawless screen was not made
from our blazing beach days

of black seaweed and slithering kites
that begged the wind to let go,

where footsteps parted sand
to lead the tide into ourselves,

to let the moon drag our bodies
into the ocean’s boundless mirrors

where, enveloped in reflections,
we could only gasp for air.

 

(originally published in Metonym, Fall 2017)

To Davin (From Laurence)

to leave water would mean I suffocate
so I wait for orange pellets to fall almost
like rain you and I are alone most
of the time pooled in a little world
aimless from place to place
in a bowl peering through glass
to see what moves around us
swimming feels like drowning
when you come to me and I press
my face to glass trying hard to break
it to come meet you
when I flap my fins it means I am starving
not for food but to end these
lonely days punctuated by when
you surface through the waters of that
more colorful other universe like magic
my sky becomes kaleidoscopic orange
and I nearly believe I belong

 

(originally published in Perspectives Magazine, Spring 2017)

Wave

when the continents drift apart
again

at least I know any island would keep you
in its palm

and stay afloat

while tectonic ghosts shift
the ocean

every cyan wave an old hello

when I last tried to hold your sail
in my fist you turned to water

but I hear the tide sing melodies
that must return

bearing my name in pewter clouds
and silver rushes the word into air

into a sailboat– I see shape
in risen mist

with hope the form lingers

long enough to lead us
to where we need to be

 

(originally published in SHANTIH, Fall 2016)

Fog

We inhaled fog on the Golden Gate
along with traffic exhaust.
Foghorns cried names
we did not recognize.
Car horns, names we gave ourselves.
From this high, you said, there is no good
way to fall. We scrunched our fingers
to encapsulate the small
fragility fog brings– how, in a moment,
everything can change / fog
of ghosts rippling waves from long-
passed boats / fog of sitting in silence,
windows down / fog of steel cable’s
fading red / fog of missing
what we lost while sun cuts a way

 

(originally published in Eunoia Review, Fall 2016)

Shapelessness

As I move further from you, whiskey in hand,
the thirst seems to pile like distance in the miles–

my shape roasted under Pacific sun.
Our sunglasses clinked with wine glasses.

The dry sponge. Run me under the sink.
Or run with me. You could be a ghost, too,

a phantom unfurling before me, haunting
each town I pass. Every morning, I am gone.

For a while, your blanket was warm. But chill the air
long enough and someone will notice. No one

likes the cold. Everyone prefers the summer river,
her water’s blue in the ice of winter, the clear

of July. I dig for you in the dirt. Then myself.
My shapelessness. My tendency to drift

so far away that I never fully return.

 

(originally published in Jazz Cigarette, Autumn 2016)