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)
pennsylvania
Bottle
corkscrew splits when prying loose
coppola‘s aged cabernet sauvignon
you once opened a bottle in a hotel
with a flatiron i bring down a steamer
the bottle perspires with no release my cat
nearly walks into the heat i’m thankful you are
present my spine so soft can’t keep anyone
safe best not dwell my memories
are triglycerides clinging the tender
parts of brain we go downhill to rite-aid
we’re told it’s barren look elsewhere
a beer store closing the clerk in desperate
gasp seeks three screws he can use
to make a tool makeshift but alas
the shoe method works he says take
your boot pound with force try
as we might against my home’s brick no
way to get how we feel into the open
(originally published in RUNDELANIA, Fall 2024)
Stressful Music
The repetitive techno at Trace
squelches and invades my ears
I am just trying to drink
coffee and move on with
my life in an aesthetically-
pleasing way with green
plaid and rough jeans
but flies swirl
around my head and
I can’t stop thinking
of you starting your
new job at the hospital
and all I want is to hold
your hand again with
the fingers currently
pressing up against
the dust of keyboard
and the history of
my heart plugged
into the wall where
ghosts walk through
all hours and stay
in the dark until
the mud begins
to dry at the crust
of my shoes
in the warm
mornings
(originally published in Disturb the Universe, Summer 2025)
A Light Snow Through the Window
Out of all activities
to do in the world,
we choose to watch
what melts. The sugar-
frosted grass, low hills, love
of our red-brick building.
If our conversations
are jet streams, if high-
altitude, high stakes,
tension– let me
please leave and be
reborn as something cold
and forgettable.
What dinosaur wanted
to become a fossil?
In our years together
we accumulated enough
to burrow deep into
the earth. Millions
of years from now,
what some sentience
will discover is that
we were once separate.
(originally published in The Field Guide, Fall 2023)
No One Asked
When Josh lingers at the end
of the workday, I think of Stand
By Me: kids’ backs covered
in leeches in the woods–
can’t push away or peel
him off, his limb-thin branches
that walk out into the dark
parking lot and back in
to bug us, again and
again, scribbling his
footprints all over concrete
in a scuffmark infinity.
I have never seen someone
so happy to have shot someone.
He returned one
weekend from Albany,
roaring with energy, eager
to tell the whole office
that burglars stole half-
million dollar lamps
from his house, but he’s
glad they did not get it
all, and how he perched
for several hours on his
staircase, alongside the fading
sun– the story convoluted
and convulsed in his hands,
the several times I heard
it told in the hallway,
in the kitchen, showing
photos of hideous antiques.
He claims to know they would
be coming. And that he
was getting updates
on the critical person’s
condition, and the words
come bursting out of his
mushroom cloud mouth
that he would have loved.
(originally published in Toasted Cheese Literary Magazine, Spring 2024)
Closure
there is no end
to wanting a better
anything. I have
driven through
stop signs on rural
roads in afternoon
light envisioning
the reality where
I have arrived
faster at our house
and you’re happy
about it for those
few extra seconds
but time is fog
that dissipates
anyway, being
that yesterday
we loved each other
and today we
are sitting at the top
of the stairs to our
bedroom petting
the cat who survived
our downfall
and mourning the one
whose heart clotted
because of it. you
notice bubbles of
water in the blue
textured wall and
we burst into
the day’s remainder,
moving temporary
belongings around
again, this time
with no effort
of emotion, no pull-
each-other-closer
because the house
has seen its share
of endings and
beginnings, I’m
sure, if we are
to frame it in
those terms
already the memories
have taken control.
(originally published in OPEN: a journal of arts & letters, Fall 2024)
I have been drowning in work
but the sun still floats past 8 PM
& I wonder where time went
sunk in the blue glow
of overheating machines
it is Monday
and everyone hates Mondays
because this past weekend
I went to a house concert
in the state I once lived in
only to return to the wheel
and drive a few marathons
windows open music loud
past spontaneous roadkill
and honeybee fields
last night I slept on a pile
of unsigned documents
dreamt of paper cuts
and Parochial school
I bought green bananas
for the office
and by the end
of the day
they were brown
(originally published in The /temz/ Review, Spring 2025)
The Shrubs of Doubt Were Misplaced
Still, the dogs watch me from behind
a fence when I walk the opposite route–
against traffic on Gross Street–
the view changes enough to convince
me I am in a different place in my life
with its industrial constellations,
a parking garage sparkling with hovering
hospital lights while skeleton neighbors
decorate homes for Halloween and blue
jays all seek a different weather. Maybe
October chill has knocked a new belief
into my teeth. Brick by brick I walk
by buildings of my past that survived
into the current, too, and a leaf
from an unseen tree floats
onto the chest of my charcoal
jacket. I pin it there
for the days I will forget.
(originally published in Ariel Chart, Spring 2024)
Summer to Spring
Sadness is a chewable tablet
in the fall. The riptide
returns with a little less
water in the hourglass
than yesterday. There is a bottle
with your name on it, a plastic
orange, pills you don’t believe in
but I believe in you and your bare-
branch will. Every year it all ends
and each time,
leaves appear again.
(originally published in Chronogram, Spring 2025)
On a Zoom Call with the World
the crows are stage left with nails in their beaks
it took centuries for modern civilization to collapse
but it is happening now and we are all here for it
looking toward the future (naïve to hold a telescope)
I see ants collapsed just outside a giant mound of
peanut butter powder coated in poison we were
feeding ourselves (and we fed so long) with words
and power with which we chose to destroy ourselves
and we are all here for it drowning in the rising seas
(originally published in Flights, Fall 2023)