So, you caught
me dozing.
Our bed a compass
without direction.
We buy a home
we say will wrench
us from the dredges
we have been stuck
in, the blue head-
lights pointing up,
forever, the language
of our love.
(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Summer 2023)
I am done with dating
apps. I would like to make
you dinner: salmon, rice,
brussels sprouts. You said
you know what I want
for my birthday over a bed
of nigiri and leaves. I rolled
sushi once in a cavern
of doubt. I couldn’t stop
shaking. The nervousness–
I mean, the lust– grew
on your vines by
your side door.
We had your home
re-keyed, then there was
trouble with the locks.
Couldn’t keep the lovers out.
(originally posted in Discretionary Love, 2025)
And my eyeballs
are on fire.
I used to like the sound
of a brush in flames,
and this is the same
thing. The burning
beneath me,
molten soil.
Running is my prerogative,
but my heart has to be
a certain way,
not not.
(originally published in Monologging, Winter 2024)
shielded from torrential downpour I count each privilege
in the rain the mailman with the bad knee runs up our
stairs to deliver corporate marketing I sit in my
comfort watching heavy mist float float off the parked
cars and wonder as the sidewalk’s sea level
rises is this a flash flood? then it lets up when it
resumes intensity I wonder if this is hurricane weather
this is Pittsburgh this is no hurricane though Laura
makes her journey up the Gulf Coast another storm in
a sky of storms I observe seemingly unlimited
(originally published in Poetica, Spring 2024)
I look for the endless
tunnel highway of light
if I see the golden
triangle pointing east
painting the far wall
spilling into another bucket
you are close enough to okay
(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Fall 2024)
I have been that guy
sitting in his car on a dark
street headlights off in
the company of siren
cicadas during a festival
down the street its residents
wanting sleep I have been
that hungry that listless
that finished within porch
light of someone else’s home
while people who look
like your past
walk on by
(originally published in The Kolkata Arts Blog, Summer 2024)
When I can’t sleep– after
lifetimes pass me by
(embers of 16-bit reflections.
Silken stars, the spider
lights that moved between)
you refuse the lake
when the lake refused
you, but I find a stack
of outdoor towels,
and I can’t stop
using the phrase.
Can’t start a fire
without seeds blowing
over tall weeds into
mouths of rubber
band bullfrogs (among
ones with sounds a larynx
can’t replicate).
Tomorrow calls for
rain. No one said
you couldn’t leave
the pond until the
bugs did what they
do best: bug you
enough to drag you
out of the water,
your feet enough
in the grass
to walk tonight.
(originally published in Piker Press, Fall 2024)
Maybe the installation was overrated–
the advertisements got us, inflated
the necessity of PVC in the center
of the city. It is August and I wanted
to see you for who you were and you
let me. Our shoes were off and
in the green shining light we were
vibrant. In the red we could not tell
each other apart from the screaming
strangers’ children, as indistinct
as silhouettes, palettes upon which
we draw the lines we see ahead; the vents
streaming air; the eighteen rooms we lost
ourselves in but not the sense of time,
which was kind of the point:
already we are labyrinths
so why pay to see
ourselves out? Not that we could
even. Had to find a blue GUIDE to point
us slightly in the direction of exodus,
another tube to lead us into the open
patio with the mobile bar selling
orange crush and cucumber vodka
with twenty other people seeking
air, or at least a chair
to sit, in which I am
wondering how close to sit
beside you? The answer
in the atoms wobbling between
us, the slight tilting of light.
(originally published in The Seraphic Review, Fall 2023)
I am not this negative.
I look at Post-It note
days and see a march
of white beneath, my life
before me on corkboards,
dilapidated. I used
to joke easily in this junk-
yard, chasing wayward
clouds in the sunset,
in awe of our city’s
little skyscrapers
over shards of broken
bottles on asphalt.
And you’d join me,
too, running across
the parking lot,
the cars rolling
over blue bridge,
roaring, as we
were under it
at the mercy
of an aged
but comforting
infrastructure.
I don’t know
if I have changed,
or if the world
is wearier, how
I don’t even
look for the
weather when
I open
the door
to leave.
(originally published in A God You Believed In, Fall 2023)
Lilly asks as we leave
the Highland Park pool
do you need
a dinosaur figurine?
I look at the lost
and found table
she points to, and
I make mental dots
for sprawling trinkets
that must have meant
something to someone,
once, trying to determine
what she means by dinosaur–
is it the green color shining
off plastic rings? The fake
bird feathers? She points
again and this time I follow
to a rubber Tyrannosaur, no
ambiguity, Yes, my cat died
this morning. Yes, right after
the break-up. Because I fit what
doesn’t make sense into butterflies,
love, and the stillness around me.
You ask, can you envision
our future together? I see it
in our palms: a tree with a million
branches, and on the other
hand, a tree with a billion
branches, and on another,
a tree full of open hands.
(originally published in Dandelion Scribes, Spring 2025)