I only know you in the dark
of music colors the big gray
tavern alive with chatter as
much as us as much as alcohol
which could let us roam
out to a new trail a morning
hike where we would talk a
quiet place and let jays
be the playlist for once
(originally published in Kettle Blue Review, Fall 2018)
I process major key as minor,
slink into couches to cry at any
gushy thing on television. Before
bed I write pages to process the
day in journals only I will read.
You say I’m genuine only when
drinking. Love is ambiguous yet
I try to process how to manage
a relationship while singing
lyrics wrong to songs I need
to learn to know you.
(originally published in Fourth & Sycamore, Summer 2018)
here’s your evergreen nowhere blue sky eyewhites your
lust for your best life I mean here is the reason sister
to run into you at North Market its coffee shop
years after hopscotch your palm tree blood
underneath it sister the last time we stayed up past
4 AM watching nature documentaries searching
for birds it was a metaphor at the time flying
out each other’s eyes how we’d be wordless
we’re wordless
(originally published in Reservoir, Summer 2018)
Rolling Acres mall
outside the record store
white hats enter
to leave shadows
every small step
a rattle of longing
blueprints for after
-college dreams
rosewood a tinge
in glass displays
reflecting fluorescence
so bright you sneeze
rockets then angle
toward the stars
didn’t the Etch-
A-Sketch always lure
you canvas and sky
hunched over red
tablet twisting
striated knobs
handmade lines
stretched star to
star everything
tethered
together
a fishing
wire
baited
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Summer 2018)
Sometimes a Saturday is candle wax
the length from Cleveland to Columbus, a highway
of years burning blue in early spring, a handful
of flowers you hand an old friend who seems
a little aged now: a new house, a long mortgage,
a luxury car and me, unemployed,
eating pizza and fries.
He drinks red wine (party
hard weekend) –
these blood-drinks of youth.
I buy him nothing
he gives me space in return.
(originally published in The Heartland Review, Fall 2018)
shining
in the sunlight
of our driveway
I go inside
to tell Dad
come see
what
I
found
no hesitation:
he squishes
its golden
guts out
a thing like
that
he says
is nothing
more
than a nuisance
but I keep
thinking
about that beetle
impossibly one
of a kind
and today
I watched
a boring
black
beetle
scurrying
across
the pavement
of Goodale Park
and disappear
into grass
and I thought
the ground
is teeming
with beetles
if I just dig
a hole
deep enough
I might
be able
to apologize
(originally published in Pouch, Fall 2018)
organ of the trees ring
the heart’s synthetic beating
the stepstep crunch
of leaves a drumbreathe
tenderly
the forest i lose
me the eye leaves
somewhere someone sees me
whose real
branch
of body
how corporeal the limbs
these purple nights return
(originally published in Kettle Blue Review, Fall 2018)
my eyes been tired recently can’t sleep
though I seen how you wept fatigued
on the bathroom floor wet tile &
we went to your bed the dog followed
& pressed paw against belly then
sighed & snored in a rhythmic breathing
we tried to do the same
(originally published in The Virginia Normal, 2018)
Flowers & God–
you tell me, slipshod,
there’s an afterlife
in the party we’re cheersing
to tonight our whole life
with small glasses of Granddad’s,
noisemakers, & drinking
games. I’d like to drown
the tissues
in something, listen to Gaelic
music like Dad used to
driving us from school with Pizza Hut
wafting from the trunk those
sunny afternoons. & now that you’ve
lost someone you’re willing to lose
your Bill Hicks-views-sense-
of-self-meaning like we all
funnel ethereal spirit into sky
& swig the rain with
drunken angels I know
you know you’re better than that.
I know you know once
the last attendee’s passed out
on the couch heavy breathing
lips purple you’d check
on him, too. You’d be alone
in the house you grew up in
with phone in your hand
calm and through the static of 911
racing to get the address out
the foaming of your mouth
and when a cop comes you
beg please don’t break this party up
and deny the red flashing lights
come
(originally published in 8 Poems, Summer 2018)
The rapid flute of birds
is overdone–
flying through loops
of branches, etc.
Give me a
sculptured break,
e.g. snapped twigs,
seesawed oaks.
I look for a natural disorder
to split the monotony
of days watching
windows of walkers
to the tune of A/C’s
perpetual, tone-deaf baritone.
(originally published in Ink in Thirds, Winter 2019)