Frailty and Fervor

  the religiosity of longing

             potatoes are my new church
long-lasting water-scrubbed love

             in the oven eleven of them
       I want you to count
              carefully

  our time remaining
                        provided what we want
                                    we really want

is growing underground in vast distant fields
    if we could see well enough to count

(originally published in HAD, Winter 2022)

Watering a Flower

  

Meditation is mellifluous
melody ignoring the choo-
choo train inside my head,

but I have been growing
better, forth in time.
There are meadows

I will never enter – renter
of everything. Nothing I meet
in this life I keep. Honest. Lover

bearing forever strands
of hair? God, infinity is
so infinite when glimpsed.

Such the rose moon
grows on this
specific sky.

(originally published in Count Seeds With Me, Spring 2022)

Float Through

Today, I slide on slush on my drive. Unplowed roads, slippery odometer–
morning snow surprise. Pittsburgh’s a city of hills unavoidable, and later,

waiting on a grocery pickup, I stare into the rearview mirror at the frost-
tipped pines when a knock on my window removes me from my existential

stupor. I don’t know how to interact anymore. Crank the window the wrong
way. Peppermint mocha, the years past. I bought a latte this morning but did

not know how to order it. The Dunkin teens stared, dumfounded, and it was
a foggy day like this– in which I float through the happenings– that I last

crashed my car. In Los Angeles, I flew down the dry 405, beat after
a long day in a Hollywood studio, and was amazed at the hospital light

brightness as I passed Westwood, like I could snap my fingers and time
would once again resume, while five other lanes of traffic zigged around

me with no regard to my existence. I was like a visitor to myself dragged
back into being with silent smoke pouring out the mouth of my Ford’s

hood. The front was crumpled but the SUV I slammed into appeared
untouched. The sixteen-year-old girl called her dad to ask what to do.

She took my insurance, my number, then drove off with the rest of the
world, as I stood at the side of the highway waiting for someone to

help me go home, still, to this day.

(originally published in the chapbook Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press), Spring 2022)

Blurry

Home is a little bit blurry.
Mom, I swear to you, it might not be
July next time I see you.

Your digital face is a little bit blurry,
but our lighthouse will always be
the one light in dark through memory,

right? I want to climb the ladder
to surveil the roof. Home has
become a wall of atrophied faces.

(originally published in The Writing Disorder, Summer 2021)

The Bucket

Ripples of water
extend into days

we are wordless
with each other.

A storm breaks,
a dog whimpers.

We hear the groaning
Earth shifting

over countless hours
into the endless sea.

I’ve had enough
of windows,

where dreams
are a quick glance

over another
unfinished drink

in the middle
of the day.

(originally published in Count Seeds With Me, Spring 2022)

Now That the End Is in Sight

Our shared strength wanes–
vaxxed, we talk about the end
like a peek of sunrise through
the blinds. Yes, beyond
winter depression we just had
depression and didn’t know
it. Spring sun’s out and
we are outside drinking.
Kids graze by like
the virus never happened.
But I was there. I was
strong. Even as a kid,
finding my father crumpled
on the floor and convulsing,
eyes rolled to the back of his
head during his stroke,
I calmly dialed 911
and waited until the
ambulance arrived, and
I was fine the whole time.
But when my sister
screeched her SUV’s tires
into our driveway, I let
go. A lifeboat. I ran
into her arms, crying,
not knowing how to say
anything I wanted to say,
and she just held me
and said it’s going
to be okay– but she
didn’t know. This past
year, I’ve held you to tell
you it’s going to be okay,
but how could I know?
Now that the end is in
sight, we wait for the light,
wilting in its arms to meet it.

(originally published in Capsule Stories, Spring 2021)

Descendant of the Big Bang

Self-absorption has turned me
into a selfish alien. On Earth,

we live in isolation
waiting for the cosmic dawn

to return in a brilliant explosion
that would rock this rock like

a great song
performing on its uppermost

stage, all of my being
expanding like a flower

until the whole universe
opens wide

like a Great Eyeball.
Our role will be to find

inexpressible
connection– a ring

of stars passing rings
of fire, each a small

cluster of blue petals.

(originally published in The Subnivean, Winter 2021)