Lost that social
muscle, backstroke
that splashes all the
words my mouth
wants to say but
needs weed
for, the weeds
overgrowing
in the far
away wild.
My back
patio’s
unbearable,
its familiarity.
I want
a pool, or
someone new
to dive into
my mind
and stay
a while.
(originally published in where is the river, Winter 2021)
Learning how to swim–
can’t say I haven’t
counted hours stars
float in the night infinite
darkness I cannot claim
sanctity within us. You point
to Orion like a familiar
neighbor like I would point
to a passing thought or ripple
believing it significant
as the moment passes.
(originally published in Artvilla, Spring 2023)
Above me, wing soundwaves visible, a flapping
back to easier days, a communal grass I could
not know I was missing, but did. Voices in my head
clamor for them, always, from windows in the bathroom,
the glowing lights’ buzz, this temporary body, not simply
the hands washed, nor the heart, the mouth, the tongue,
each breath, each thrill, each paper airplane landing on
its own brown rectangle of nothing.
(originally published in Unlikely Stories Mark V, Winter 2023)
Presently I am restless.
The television’s flickering
from the bedroom distracts
me from my mind’s reruns.
Last night, I learned to float
on my back for the first time.
It’s all about the ears, my teacher
said, but I am thinking about
her hands– how she held me.
My lower spine. Right leg.
The night before, on her couch,
our kneecaps sat a centimeter
apart, enough to receive each other’s
heat. I recalled a video in which
two water droplets in close proximity
refused to stop reaching for the other,
tirelessly wobbling until
losing strength. Perhaps we
both have been dating others for
too long, afraid of the aftermath.
In the pool, she let me float
into the purple dusk beneath
the bright, orange moon. I was
an egg unformed and drifting,
a body in transition shifting
wherever the pool dictated.
I cannot predict where shooting
stars appear in thin atmosphere air,
nor how far they’ll go, only that
they are doomed to disappear.
(originally published in Raised Brow Press, Summer 2020)
Another gray sky day, empty gas tank worries in the countryside
nowhere don’t you long for my touch? Oz runs just far enough
for the bone against the backdrop of my outstretched arm
hand out fingers extended & I don’t know where I stand with Jessie
except she must find me pathetic as she walks into water under the
influence of Dr. Dog & now she swim-dances the past three days she’s
walked along the rock edge of the pool. & now I need to text Tony Z.
what’s a man most afraid of? I’m getting used to inadequacy. Oz brings
his bone to the other side of the fence. Jessie says she misses the green,
the pool purified at the beginning. Sara throws pong ball through
the hole of a lime lifesaver floatie and a butterfly metaphor soars
above the water. Have you ever almost drowned on drugs? I don’t
recommend it. The lesson is gravity’s not the occasionally falling apple
but the drifting leaf toward the other side, whatever the definition. September
third and we just got our first sunburns. Hannah leaves the house after
work and like a magic trick, three pong balls appear in the water
and the sun reveals itself a moment. Oz lays in the grass in front
of me before a philosophical discussion about casserole and how to cope
with beans bought at the beginning of pandemic we will never eat.
(originally published in KNOT Magazine, Fall 2021)
so much depends
upon placement
an 8-ball
between stripes
at the edge
of a hole
a drunkard
aims the stick
knocks in
loss
with unbuttoned
cuff
(originally published in Door Is A Jar Magazine, Spring 2020)
there’s nothing but teeth
and sky and sharp wind shrieking
out until slapped / skin and sunbreak
risen water suspended after a cannonball
plunge / eyes closed we split
through chlorine like we’re chemically
bound / to renewal but how artificial
we fill ourselves with air and float / eyes
up at the clouds and a single plane
descends / toward LAX and we know
how it ends: a little shake / in the landing
and diminished speed recalling
the turbulence / that dove
from glass mansions
(originally published in After the Pause, Fall 2017)
We lounge by the pool
& sink before entering.
Its blue averts new colors.
It’s simple: I don’t know how to love
without drowning,
lungs flooding with chlorine.
I never want to dive into the deep
& forget how to breathe
but I followed & found to love
is to leave your fins on land–
but silent in the deep, lungs
rationing air, I want us never to open
our eyes underwater to find
the pool colorless– that we
will always see the blue
the water does not have.
(originally published in GNU Journal, Winter 2017)
Yesterday we were at a pool party
attended by only a few others. It was
dog-friendly, as it was last week,
so the lone, small white dog
lapped water into his mouth
while on an inflatable raft and we
stood in silence and watched as he
drank the blue that held the specks
of fallen leaves and submerged spiders
while our beers turned warm. Last week
we were at a party in the same house
with a few of the same people but the
sun was out and I did not have to keep
wondering if you were okay, if you would
dip your feet into the clear with me and all
the people we did not know then because,
last week, a stranger in a bar did not yet
shake your body and bite you
long after you begged him not to–
no, the night before last week’s party
we danced to nineties hip-hop
inside the shadows of others until
we could not help but mine our
bodies for gold. Last week, we laughed
as the dog lapped the pool into his mouth
but watching, now, we know there are some
who force a tongue at whatever water
they see fit, how they lap and lap
until there’s nothing but a splash
of what they lapped at all.
(originally published in The Collapsar, Summer 2016)