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)

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)

God Poem

I believe in you

with your hand
in my hand,

which forgives
who I am,

who I have been–
every sin absolved,

we clasp
in silent prayer

and respond,
really respond

to our prayers.

With your hand
in my hand

this land
is my land,

indivisible
under sheets

and gone
in the morning.

 

(originally published in SOFT CARTEL, 2018)

Blendoku

We can work on puzzles all day,
watch the patterns move
from one color to the other.

Block colors twist in gradients
until blending into something else.

The sun removes itself
from the scene, shifts
behind a cloud,

creates a change in light,
a block of bricks on a building
slightly darker than the rest.

 

(originally published in SOFT CARTEL, 2018)