Broken bottles on the bridge
above the blue Olentangy.
My time in this city is
limited, as is my body,
the future a compromise,
shards from the persistence
of believing in transcendence.
The sweltering sun pummels
my skin, exposed, as I wait for
a sign to cross the river road.
(originally published in indefinite space, Spring 2019)
The days when we would lay
on blue towels by the beach
combing through our Merriam-Webster
holding every fascinating word by the stems in our mouths,
our vibrancy was inseparable from gardens
full of hyacinths and rhododendron and zinnias
and, yes, forsythias, all these flowers in our hometowns
we never knew the names of
until we saw the words on sand-shorn pages,
said the names out loud, grasped endlessly
for petals in each other. No, we bloomed
laughter from our throats, planted seeds
into pits where absence grows in ensuing Aprils.
We never knew what words might appear
on Scrabble nights hunched over grids of possibility and–
strings of letters string surprising words together.
Marionettes, spider webs, violins, shoelaces,
your hair among the rules of nature, and nurture,
here nurturing the garden, here the home
where we tend other flowers– all my love,
I repeated. Forsythia, forsythia, forsythia.
But those beach days were distant, the tide slurring
softly alongside my returns from long unexplainable workdays–
all my love, I repeated. For Cynthia.
Wooden tiles tornadoed to the floor, slapping
the carpet with words we had not invented yet–
there is no remedy for lost trust. The flame
already sleeps in the bed of the mouth.
Cynthia, Cynthia. I did not know a Cynthia–
but I had never been able to name a forsythia
in the wild. The next time I see one
will feel like cheating. Nothing too-known is magical–
there is wonder in inventing nomenclature,
that a word like forsythia can only be made
in moments like anesthesia, with darkness descending
like the cigarette clouds of a severe storm when, in the drift
into a new consciousness, a lilac floats your mind’s pond–
a lilac, maybe, though that’s not what you want,
and maybe, in the distance, you see the blossoming
yellow that accompanies spring, the air golden around it–
the beauty that’s grander than words.
You wish you never learned the name for it.
(originally published in Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Spring 2017)
(originally published in Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Winter 2016)
I manifest prayer
into the unspoken covenant of suburbia,
the gravel pockmarked by drought,
by time, trickling time. . .
the desert calls its rare waters oasis– so,
purge the monstrous depths of your chosen gorge,
knives outwardly aimed
at some balloon’s held breath–
(originally published in Pouch, Spring 2016)
Often I find myself wanting to move
from the dust like a lost, small dog,
fur a summertime shackle.
Those dark winter days
we were our own light.
Lapped the water in from a trough.
We didn’t have to dip (not deeply)
and we’d share our sips freely.
Then Valentine’s Day
came and went.
Meanwhile we sat alone
at our computers,
waiting to press send.
(originally published in The Legendary)
Sometimes I say what I don’t mean.
There is an algorithm which can make me forget;
the others remind me to remember.
Your action has been undone. As if my actions
needed a separate undoing– I did not expect you,
with your raven hair, to perch our thousand
miles, thousand days to bottle time
and cast to sea, a folded note to be read
by a stranger at shore. Here, I am a knot
bound to be undone, tethered to a battered shoe,
and in the sprint, wind coarsens your hair.
In the cold we move closer and closer until the breathing
is stale and fogs my car’s windows, the outside world
turned gray. Confusing a fluorescent lightbulb for the moon,
I would risk one more rejection to bring you even nearer,
past the point of no return.
(Originally published in Corium Magazine, Spring 2016)
in the orchard, a mother drinks rosé, bites
into a granny smith. the other apples
are rotten now, well– autumn
peels history off barks. the trees become
malnourished skeletons, tiny skulls. forget.
over and over. bees gather nectar
and you almost forget to laugh. they pluck
the fruit. too young to remember, too
momentous. one time he played too close
to the hive– well, life isn’t honey, she said,
even if you are mine. finding a diamond
in a diamond mine. hey, that’s still special.
who’s to say if it’s worth anything. all her
jewelry. diamond in her open palm. show
me. oh, how it glistened– no one asks
anymore. she does not want anyone to.
(originally published in Botticelli Magazine, Spring 2016)
Tongues composed of lager and slathered words drip
turbulence from the roadmaps of mouths, the ocean’s
rock and regurgitation. We meandered along brick-paved
roads with half-amber jugs in our hands, how quickly
we drown but how slowly we swayed on swings
in the frigid, desolate playground at night by the highway,
eyes entranced by the spotlight from the city’s hidden heart
we desire but never find but in the beer’s flat hops like a pair
of clumsy trombonists, asynchronous staccatos and B-flat
scales bottling air from silver mouthpiece to S.O.S–
(originally published in Cacti Fur, Summer 2016)
Tambourines shook to bodies
clicking in uncertainty, heartbeats
in heart surgery, incisions in conjunction
with each step, hoping motion gives meaning
to life, the idea of it, discordant
on the shivering nape of a neck,
two shadows in a drumbeat
singing themselves a song.
(originally published in Icarus Down Review, March 2016)
A former friend said to me, I’m jealous of your whimsical life.
I haven’t stopped drinking since I was in a hotel room
with his wife, my feet kneading red, chalklike carpet,
their honeymoon’s pall a dim, amber light. She said
you need Vitamin D, Sunshine. I made a habit
of overdosing on the sun. Tell me again what I need.
I had yet to unpeel friendship’s pear with my lips–
and sink. I danced with her months before
at The Viper Room, my shirt half-clipped. I could not stop
thinking about how we might fit under the drunken moon:
her candles the flares in a darkening room, wax trickling
with no end, the rose-like incense rotting the room…
I read an article claiming that remembering
a memory is like saving a JPEG–
each time you remember, the image pixelates
a little more until it blurs beyond recognition.
It was dark when it happened. We were drinking.
Streetlights cast orange bars on the bed through
window blinds while we slipped hungrily
from existence. Her face was a spade
but we felt like the garden, digging deeply
into ourselves until we became an open cemetery.
***
I drink screwdrivers to feel the acid on my tongue,
feeling better since fleeing to the bay’s foggy shores.
I make stops to study the water at each chilly beach,
every heave of the tide as clear as the last–
and as frenzied– her arm reaches into the sand
closer and closer to pull me in, have one last good look
at me to ensure I disappear, if I’m not already gone.
I have my flask. The sunset. Miles of winding road.
Memories to fade, to make, to fade.
(originally published in Memoryhouse, Spring 2016)