28th Street Bridge

Every time I drive the 28th St. Bridge I always make the joke
to myself– should I really be driving on this?

It’s a paunchy punchline to no one and still I apologize for it–
a comment on the bridge’s chipped green paint and rusted

hinges, the (perceived) rickety short-distance, its creaking (I
don’t hear a thing). How close I’ve been to a laugh, some snicker

into an abyss– I’ve said much worse to people and not apologized,
driving over the strip after a fight with my lover, suspended

in the air a silence like tracking a FedEx truck with a package
you know will reach you but when? That apology– the tethering

between the space of sound, the hum of a hungry engine,
covalence of steel and structure bonding across a void.

(originally published in where is the river, Winter 2021)

Driving in Loops to Enterprise

We cruised Penn Avenue as compliant
vagabonds to the parking garage train

station to deposit/withdraw rental cars
in other people’s names. For a long time

I believed if you drove the actor’s maroon
luxury vehicle, you’d become the moon

yourself, at long last a god you believed in.
Being one who has to drive it to where it

must go, I know by now you will guide
its hand back to beneath the famous blue

bridge in the strip. You will sit at your desk
in the grainy film of your dreams and sketch

the rumblings of this world until golden hour.
The sun, then, will gift upon you ultraviolets.

(originally published in Confluence, Spring 2020)

gorge on whoppers we’re making a movie

this bag of salmon we’re making a movie

sleeping pills we’re making a movie

thirteen hours plus we’re making a movie

I won’t eat pizza we’re making a movie

Caesar salad in the storm we’re making a movie

no one goes home we’re making a movie

watery leftovers we’re making a movie

dropkicked phones we’re making a movie

at the paper cutter we’re making a movie

beets at crafty we’re making a movie

there’s nothing to eat we’re making a movie

thousands of packages we’re making a movie

we’re making the movie Monday what will you be doing

are you going to miss us we’re making the movie

(originally published in Mad Swirl, Summer 2020)