The endless universe of this coffee-church
I blend into the ground, ground
anxiety into yours, I met you there, pit-
pattering footsteps I couldn’t stop
listening to. I asked myself
if this was a joke
the way only nervous nothing I said
to you. Yah-yah-yah.
I am awake, I know
over this river I
Jesus-walk miraculously
you reach your hand
to me–
cold, wet illness.
Neither of us are
here.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Winter 2021)
I often disappoint myself,
though half-reckoning is
a wreck in the making.
Insensitive interstate a
random number generator,
impartial to chaos. This rush
hour pileup from heart
to mouth. I say I love you
like it is always summer,
but today marks fall. Why this
world spun me into Pittsburgh
eludes me. This is not a yearning
for old light, coated in cinnamon.
I laid my head on your chest
and the rest happened like history.
(originally published in Adelaide Literary Journal Anthology, Spring 2021)
Death is in the shriveled blue and purple
hydrangea bouquet I gifted you. Kathy
bought the same, smaller, but they did not last
so much as linger. Mom calls me from Macy’s–
where she has sold colognes for thirty years–
and says she still struggles. But, on the phone,
I am drunk on a beach towel in a horse cemetery
where Juan Carlos and his team of red ride in
circles over forgotten bones, chasing a ghost-
white ball with a mallet through the empty space
between goalposts. In the first chukker, my sister–
who broke the news I somehow already knew
with a call in the dark of a dorm room– texts
me that she’s thinking of me today. At halftime,
when spectators are invited to flatten divots
on the field with their shoes, Kathy leaves
to help her family move, and the moment
she reverses her car from our tailgating spot,
I answer a call I am unaware of from my other
sister before seeing her text ask if I am okay,
that it sounded like I was in an accident
and drove into grass. No, I tell her, I am day-
drunk among ponies in the withering days
of summer. But what I don’t tell her is
on the way here, Kathy didn’t see the turquoise
minivan she nearly plunged into, and all we could
do as passengers was clutch the leather beneath
us as she sped full-throttle on thin and curvy roads
through the woods. We prayed to whatever tree
was nearest– birches in a blur– prayed the whole forest
to provide a signal to remind us we are, briefly, breathing.
(originally published in Sampsonia Way Magazine, Summer 2020)
all this balance nothing to show for it
seesaw the most patient of virtues–
patience
get up god damn it
when you fall can you please get the fuck up
lemons fire from cannons
zest on my back
& I am always running
can’t say the words right in my head
but in the glitch of No Music just levers clicking
& motherfuckers shouting woo! in the sorry
white
sky
(originally published in TRIBES, Fall 2021)
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)
Bananas everywhere make me hungry.
The doormat, the neon sign, the sticker
on your Apple– I can’t help it. My
cuteness doesn’t preclude that I am part
wolf. A ruthless hunter. When I run
across the rug to your room I want you
to throw fruit on the floor just to bite off
the peels. I’ve had my eyes on inedible Ethel
the Christmas Chicken when I learned she’s
still a chicken. For once I want a sandwich.
Put me in your cart with a potato gun
at Sam’s and we’ll hold that whole
place up. As you ransack the banana stand,
I’ll loot the deli and meet you in the middle.
(originally published in Jokes Review, Summer 2020)
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)
you stepped in dog
poop on your birthday
but still had a good birthday
we walked through windchimes
off golden sidewalks
& drank a vat of black coffee
free from a corporation
so desperate for your loyalty
all our other friends
reached into their pockets
to blow out their rewards, too
(originally published in The Daily Drunk, Winter 2021)
tin colander holes parts of me peeking
out into the kitchen horizon past the stove
which so very recently burned blue &
contained above potentially dangerous
gas of which you were in control
unlike last night you did the right
thing begging cathy not to drive
home her slurring sentences
& drunken desperation just
hours before all three of us
together I had to walk home
after downing Nosferatus
and you were there with her
drinking tequila when you called
to say now I really
have to say goodbye
but everything was fine you
arrived at your destination
but she wanted to
drive again the night
air thin
& shivering &
blue when she
departed
(originally published in Gingerbread Ritual Literary Journal, Winter 2021)