the raindrop
life (transience
is a home)
loneliness
forms
on clear days
rising out
of reach
& always
when you wake
(originally published in Literary Yard, Summer 2018)
old
Lyft Shift (2/9/17)
driving in circles
around the city
snow caps on all cars
little mountains shivering
tiny motors no one knows
the name of anyone
only a word on a screen
a face forgotten
and city lights
there’s a light rain mixed
with snow
the roads not slick
I am picking
up passengers
at the end of the night
and no further
than I was
at the beginning.
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Summer 2018)
In His Youth
He drowned the world–
a wonder, not a caution signal.
Back then, it was possible
for a dog to become a horse,
for food never to become weight,
for sunsets to reward long days
of biking in circles around
the yard’s dead walnut tree.
(originally published in The Wayward Sword, Summer 2018)
For Erica
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)
Endless August
I have swam your blue eyes enough
to know the color of the ocean.
We rise ethereal with laughter and smoke
below hanging lights which drift through
time, Bulleit in our blood.
Months will pass before
we talk our pasts again.
Until then I am content on
the sun-steel chairs to wait.
(originally published in The Wayward Sword, Summer 2018)
Notes on a Poem at a Bar
Here is my true intention / inability:
capture your beauty in the whites between words.
I scribble words: egg, mountain.
Neither the creamy expanse of an egg in a pan
nor the peak of mountain in twilight
conjure the essence of you.
I’ve searched for stars in the dictionary.
And your brown eyes search me for answers.
I have none. I’ve scribbled out
attempts in red pen.
Only if I rise godlike out of body will I (perhaps)
in the sky simplify / complicate language enough
to describe your infinite(simal) beauty.
These plentiful dice roll combinations of words.
These few.
I don’t rise. I’m here beside you
wondering if I should utter my thoughts
like a prayer to you.
Then, years from now, maybe
I’ll guess what I said and write the poem then.
(originally published in Delphinium, Summer 2018)
Lunch with an Old Friend
wish I still knew how to talk about games
movies television sports
blue fish waddling onto soil of questions trudges
leaves bodyprints wet move
closer to some common thread we may yet find
yet know a fishing line in the reel of your hand
mouth brain our friendship was incorrigible
as the moon in a poem in a lit mag
super nintendo and the cement unfinished
scent of basements carpeted staircases doritos
always going down down down
affection every thump downward
like the rest of life tumbling
through deserts of thought mist sandstorm
the sun wrangles some truth out of stranded
windows translucent sunlight
shifting across the wooden table
of distance time summers
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Summer 2018)
Coma
Bleeding nose.
Crooked smile.
I will run you under water.
Your carved, concrete face.
Clothes you did not wear: tulip.
Leave your red suitcase on the floor.
The fanny pack, too.
Soft whistles: ghostly silk of burnt ember.
I am the only one you never needed.
Saliva on your bottom lip.
A hole.
A pillow.
We sat warm on elongated bus rides.
Followed barren trees along the highway to places we won’t.
(originally published in The Magnolia Review, Summer 2018)
Editing Room
Evenings in the video lab laughing at ourselves acting in
perpetual circles the clicks of play and rewind in a dialogue
with eternity rectangular how to zoom into self with microscope
both of us learning but look at you now in the fighter jet
sky tethered to wirings of small precise instruments of war how
we live in the perpetual unknowing state of I want you always
to come home even not to me because back then
every small moment was contained in its forever
(originally published in Street Light Press, Spring 2018)
The Overlook at Baldwin Hills
rarefied air
never spring
the way smog
sept into our lungs
on the couch hand in hand in
the same room breathing
the same air where there
are more heights to inhale
(originally published in SOFT CARTEL, 2018)