You Leave to Make Art in the South

      humid
          green
        swamps
    a riverflow
  of talent
      the sediment
         of the world
             gone well
                   past
                 my flaws
                   I wish
                 still for contact
             this accident of
          longing a lesson
       in how not to be alone
                    through the lens
                              of canvas

(originally published in Erothanatos, Spring 2020)

To Davin (From Laurence)

to leave water would mean I suffocate
so I wait for orange pellets to fall almost
like rain you and I are alone most
of the time pooled in a little world
aimless from place to place
in a bowl peering through glass
to see what moves around us
swimming feels like drowning
when you come to me and I press
my face to glass trying hard to break
it to come meet you
when I flap my fins it means I am starving
not for food but to end these
lonely days punctuated by when
you surface through the waters of that
more colorful other universe like magic
my sky becomes kaleidoscopic orange
and I nearly believe I belong

 

(originally published in Perspectives Magazine, Spring 2017)