Wall, Edge, Chandelier

past the corner of this house’s Kubrick architecture
     on the couch a bundle of eyes
                               a slopping visual stain
       but it’s true. my vision is blurry
            I spent the walking sidewalk
            grapes inside my right cheek
    thinking how I want to win you.
                so romantic, you
                with a stranger in my house
                                about to
                          dine on the fruit of
                       ancient gods and I am laughing
                                            now to have the ghost
                                            within my walls, my green
                                                        heart long and longing
                                                                 lunging out my chest
                                                                       it sticks to paint
                                                                                  like spaghetti

 

(originally published in streetcake, Summer 2018)

Macaroni

we’ve run out of money
again so cabinets

are stacked with Kraft
mac and cheese

familiar blue and orange
taken for granted

like in photos
sunshine a steaming pot
our brighter days

we seek heat
somewhere

outside the kitchen
the water boils

and it’s twenty degrees
outside

I see wings
in the steam
rising

we have been
powder and sugar and milk
you know these basic elements

a simplification
all

we have to do is
call a food nostalgic
to love it.

 

(originally published in formercactus, Spring 2018)

From Mother

Live a long life, son. Eat noodles on your birthday.
Al dente. Do it every holiday, so I can live on long

past done spaghetti which sticks upon the wall,
frozen in time against the whims of dun sodden

dust and entities beyond the sounds of crying
from the bathroom at 2 A.M. beneath the black-

dripped canvas of luminous lights. The grass, uncut,
reaches far now above the frizzy tips of your hair

 

 

(originally published in The Birds We Piled Loosely – Issue #1)