I am a clicking sound in the tongue of the restaurant–
how would you like to be served how may I serve you
the bones are getting cold in this chicken breast this cutlet
of space I said I’d do anything for cash and it’s true there is
no limit to greed that’s the whole idea space expands
and my atoms stay quantum and still, relatively.
(originally published in Erothanatos, Spring 2020)
When I first saw the broom stand
upright in the room, I thought, witchcraft.
I couldn’t sleep for days after that.
Not because it tumbled and crashed
to the floor in a roar of unforeseen
thunder, but because it was thrilling
to see the way we could play with
gravitational pull. Can my chewy
be tossed across the office with
a knuckleball axis tilt at the end?
I’ve witnessed tricks, your robot-
walk into a wall, your near-miss
backflip kick to the hanging amber
lights off the ceiling. I see everything
that happens here from my suite
on the floor, which is why, one day,
when the moon is tugging the world
the right way, I’ll sneak out my pillow
into the hall, past the conference room.
When you search for me, I will stand
on two legs in the shadows, ready
to capture your reaction on camera.
(originally published in Communicators League, Fall 2021)
Nothing to start conversation with
but the glow of television, hors d’oeuvres
the crowd devoured and I could only stand
and gape at the electric wiring strung along
the ceiling that led to the hanging light
fixture, a metallic apple dimmed. I wanted
to talk about architecture but felt wildly
inadequate due to the bricks missing
in my brain, hammers clanking where
words should, my mouth full of nails.
(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Summer 2020)
do you mean something else
because right now I am committed
to the rare magic of water its myriad
forms fresh salt rain ice
but don’t you go change too
much on me I feel so small
in the emptiness following days
without you being in the pull
of your invisible gravity what
a dance to be so meaningless
years away from all other heat and
made of fragile things carbon dust
yet when I fart and sneeze through
the night I still have my body
and you intact in morning light
(originally published in former People, Winter 2020)
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)
-sign posted by the African Tree Grape
at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical
Gardens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
meaning
I love you I love you
or I did it’s not dead
I swear in my heart
there’s our little room
full of dust
your fingerprints
on the window
we’re not dead
but we’re trying
to figure this living-
together shit
and not take
our suitcases
boxes
of handwritten cards
Miami Post-Its
and the cats
oh my god the cats
litter the house with
stars we’d sweep
for trash night
on Thursday
with all the puffy
white bags
that sometimes rip
and leave grape
stems
on the sidewalk
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Winter 2020)
It is eighty-two degrees in Pittsburgh and my trunk
is crammed so your DQ cake sits in the passenger seat,
moves the same speed I do in my car in this orbit
in this galaxy. There is so much matter to keep cool
in the universe, but there’s sunshine through my wind-
shield and you– I know– thaw as a passenger beside
me. I’m doing what I can: aiming all the frigid vents
that way, holding a folder to shade you. I drive fifty-
five in a thirty-five to avoid my mind entertaining a
milky flood mixed with dust, dog hair, cookie crumbs,
and lust pooling where you are, your name in icing
illegible– it’s fine, for now. Don’t freak out. I am
floating over a bridge, the sun forever taunting,
and soon I know you’ll go, in one way or another,
into the mouth of a thankful person– whether me,
trying to save you from this heat, or you, radiant
as the sun, seeing celestial bodies who– for at
least this rotation– you know revolve around you.
(originally published in Dodging the Rain, Spring 2020)
a year goes quick but it’s enough of a time shift a mind shift
to pretend we were in paradise with our friends a steaming mug
of cider I had a handle on donning a black wig forgetting
seemed the natural progression of things no masks no monsters
in our midst no guns in our field of vision truly this was
paradise sometimes it seems a risk every time we enter public
space this morning I felt there were sinister forces beyond
my control that I couldn’t blame on hangover it was in the gob
of spider ferns unfolding it was in the wind a stranger waving
to me waiting at a crosswalk America I only feel safe inside
my shadowed home doors locked curtains drawn I felt the lips
of unspeakable tragedy drawing me in for a kiss and I pulled my
mouth away to run to Netflix Mindhunter Manhunt:
Unabomber Dexter so many monsters wearing masks this
paranoia’s a fog lingering never have I wanted a dog more
just to add one layer of protection past the window’s breaking
glass the shards and sharp teeth are everywhere this life if I
knew where to look and where I know I should
(originally published in Carpe Bloom, Winter 2019)
Ripples of water
extend into days
we are wordless
with each other.
A storm breaks,
a dog whimpers.
We hear the groaning
Earth shifting
over countless hours
into the endless sea.
I’ve had enough
of windows,
where dreams
are a quick glance
over another
unfinished drink
in the middle
of the day.
(originally published in Count Seeds With Me, Spring 2022)
It comes in waves, the grief, though you laugh
as you say so, because we are in the Atlantic,
children again, uppercutting large tides,
and I never learned to swim, but the saying–
the metaphor– is true, the water is relentless,
and we were states away from the hospital,
where your father was, when you got the
call, and later, in our hotel’s game room,
there was a balancing act– you, your family,
the ping-pong paddles on the black table,
the plastic balls rolling slowly onto the floor
at the end of another meaningless game, the
bouncing, then physics, entropy ending–
how else to reconcile lost time? This dusting,
this airing out, now, swimsuits soaked from
the salt of the sea, this fabric, this residue
dripping off of this vacation into the old
Civic, the broken A/C, the windows’ open
breeze, silence of the road lodged between
green hills, so endless, our breathing.
(originally published in Creative Writing Ink’s Monthly Contest, November 2019 Winner)