Froghead, keep your slither distant
the empty land-cradled bridge
reeks of constructed debris
a lost ditch
speak: your tongue can’t hear you
Mezcal distant as the nearest soul
(originally published in The Legendary)
Original
Arizona Desert
sand lodged in the crooks of fingernails
watch the way light
reflects its own water
the last time something glimmered
was birth driving ninety
through the Arizona desert
the scorch in red rocks
pursued our same dreams
pricklier than a cactus
you leave who you love
the phone conversations
of dryer lint and treble
in heat, tires tremble
in cold, you wait
(originally published in “the vacant hinge of a song“, courtesy of Origami Poems Project)
Start
The Sacrament of Confession in Catholic School
In kindergarten, I sketched a vagina as a circle
lost in strands of hair, similar to a scribbled sun.
The inklings of want would soon
set sail. When I showed the drawing
to my mother, she somehow knew what it was.
Her suspicious eye taught me life is the pursuit
of the scribbled sun. The first time I drove a car alone,
zooming up the hill toward the highway, I took pictures
of the sunset without watching the road, as if heaven
could be captured with my own fingers. At sixteen
I stole Snickers bars at my first job. The dollar store
went under. It could have been worse. I told the priest
maybe God thinks I touch myself improperly.
He said to toss the dirty magazines, meaning
I didn’t change a thing. In marching band, I pressed
my mouth against the trombone’s silver mouthpiece
and kissed when I blew, spit coursing through the instrument’s body
until it dripped onto the checkered floor. I didn’t lose my virginity
too early. By then it was too late. I have seen the L.A. River
rub itself dry beneath the metal bridges, withered and silent,
while the ocean wets perpetual sand, and all I could do
was run my fingers through the tide’s receding hair.
In seventh grade the school librarian declared if anyone
in class could finish A Tale of Two Cities, it was me.
I did not finish. I was twelve and mastering arousal,
turning pages with fingers on thighs inside of skirts,
skulking my hand up to God, to the first time
I knew sanctity– and the feeling, unlike faith,
was enough to make me believe.
(originally published in Corium Magazine, Spring 2016)
Skywriting
in that gray cloudlessness
between cyan and cornflower,
our words became ice, steel
wings barreling to
the edge of escape
(originally published in ‘the vacant hinge of a song‘, courtesy of Origami Poems)
“I Wish I Knew How to Quit You,” Says the Moon
We know it is us
who wish to quit the moon.
We close our eyes our jaggedness
could drive the sun away but never
in the way our metaphors could.
Still we write the moonlight
into the sand and growl
at the tide
and again
when the tide returns.
We cry from the shape
our lives took to intersect–
an hourglass
filled with sugar,
or a snail. Or a million
hourglasses, a million snails,
a million glimmering shells
in a measured slowness.
You were talking about the sunrise–
but I never wanted to look.
(originally published in Thin Air, Spring 2016)
Jack
This dog has seen you paint red the walls
and its color fade from sheetrock.
Rest. You walk butterfly wings,
each step a budding stem.
You and Jack love similarly, a dance
of tongue-and-stomp. Long-nailed
paws clomp heartbeats to the closed
door, painted white– a desire panting
for who is on the other side– and he waits,
as you have, on so many nights.
(originally published in Heartbeat, Issue 2)
Short Return to LA
With every step, the air parted
and spoke your name.
Smog and all, would you forget
the jagged alleys where
we fermented, became wine?
Its knife cut ribbons, red
repelling the pressure of four A.M breathing.
Driving home from San Francisco down the coast,
each Joshua tree prayed
to a vastness greater than the desert.
The long, Pacific vistas became the sheen
of old Mustangs caught beneath shadows
of Wilshire’s vacant towers.
Our heels kicked dust
and browned the sky–
ever were the hours sand
on the beach, infinite and pearling
a microscopic glint…
the ocean still haunts–
its salt so embedded
in our skin.
(originally published in Rust+Moth, Spring 2016)
Happy Hour Whiskey
I don’t think my dad would be proud of me
writing poems on bar napkins
after that fifth happy hour whiskey.
This is how I want it: to be disengaged
by the time my uniform cuffs roll
to my eyes in stupor to avoid the
solemn eyes of ancestors in the sky.
Transparent Mufasas and steely voices
judge me like America judges Kardashians.
The reality is you can rewind the DV tape
back to the beginning tomorrow and show me
the footage of my stumbling into the driver’s seat.
The cosmos roll in their graves.
Meanwhile I am the last child
who can cast the line onward–
past, present, future.
A syzygy from birth.
The headlights wane.
(originally published in Jawline Review, Spring 2016)
To Emily (From Angel)
To run away would prove
the wild still within me,
taming that short fence with my claws
to catapult into the trees where birds
and squirrels and spiders sleep alone.
I look starward when you lure me
out among the sparrows. I am no monster
who lurks in twilight, but sometimes
exist memories I never made, when cool air
rushes into me through the window screen
like the moon commanding the tide–
I am not fully water but, like you, an animal embedded
with her feral past– my sisters teach me to hunt,
mice dangling from their mouths that haunt afternoon naps
on your heavy bed– my beautiful sisters never knowing
how it feels to be a princess, gold and pink
tiaras glistening between their royal ears.
I would not belong in those sprawling
forests from my dreams. The hunger
from the wild’s lack of you
would tremble my true heart home
under starlight’s navigation– to here,
where my whiskers graze your calves,
where I am cradled in your arms
in the company of heartbeat:
a sweetness, a tenderness
the feral could never dream of.
(Originally published in VAYAVYA, Spring 2016)