shielded from torrential downpour I count each privilege
in the rain the mailman with the bad knee runs up our
stairs to deliver corporate marketing I sit in my
comfort watching heavy mist float float off the parked
cars and wonder as the sidewalk’s sea level
rises is this a flash flood? then it lets up when it
resumes intensity I wonder if this is hurricane weather
this is Pittsburgh this is no hurricane though Laura
makes her journey up the Gulf Coast another storm in
a sky of storms I observe seemingly unlimited
(originally published in Poetica, Spring 2024)
rain
Day 14 of 21 (Block A)
I saw you meditating
in the UPM’s office shades pulled
lotus on speckled carpet
you caught me wondering
if you were tranquil I felt terrible
though the door was open I was
an arrow piercing peace
that single moment I don’t know
if you ever think about it
your spotting my gaze lasted one
second at most my mind runs
reruns just tell me you’ve forgotten
in the chaos of casting hundreds
of extras for a scene canceled
by sudden rain
(originally published in The Broadkill Review, Summer 2021)
Rainwater Is Now Undrinkable
everywhere around the world.
I learn this at work, a television
production office. A film would
frack lands surrounding its sets
were it to save a few hundred
bucks– you thought I’d say lives?
What powers that be? We’re alive,
yes, already pulsing red rivers
breached with microplastics.
The jingling adds up in my veins.
When I read forever chemicals,
I want it to mean love
but it is in the way we will
suffer together, forever,
oil rigs raised, still, all
over, hands up in ugly prayer.
The burning questions I want
to ask I can’t even stand
outside in a storm and be satiated.
(originally published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Winter 2023)
Yellow Poncho
Love your
yellow poncho–
makes this
umbrella
inessential. I’ll
reach for your hand
quietly. What
sadness,
this shawl
over you.
Nothing could
let you go
like the
rain.
(originally published in Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, Winter 2022)
Leak
Amber water dripping from the ceiling–
inadequacies from above. Last night I drank
a strawberry margarita & saw on your father
the face of your sister. He poked a hole in the tile
with a ballpoint pen. Asked for a hammer
nails or a screwdriver & we had none. The
rain at war with this city flooding three days &
I face temperance by drinking less & choose
games at bars we fold up at the end of each
loss then go home to watch movies because
the self grows this way forward. You study
heavy books I lay on the rock futon in our guest
room far from the tarp across our bed & the new
carpet stained from what we cannot stop. Water
follows least resistance the contractor says.
I need small emergencies to seal these gaps.
(originally published in White Wall Review, Winter 2021)
Denuded
Naked at the lake between salamander bodies, I kiss
your face, handfuls of sunflower on my nipples.
With mountains behind me (to my surprise)
I have become a bouquet. Verdant hills
a family– a cheetah must hide in this wilderness.
I feel emerald eyes ogling me from somewhere
in space time– even in this reunion,
I want to be as naked as a cloudless sky,
as the eroded stone I stand on.
(originally published in The Sock Drawer, Fall 2020)
Rain Dance
sometimes who you love
is anticipation thus you wave
at forecasts flail at clouds
hands defying gravity you
drop-down dance someone
into your heart
(originally published in Botticelli Magazine, Spring 2018)
Rain Again
& you weep on the phone
asking what’s wrong
typically nothing
nothing I say
water patters
to puddle
the white noise
needed for sleep
(originally published in Rosette Malificarum, Winter 2018)
Umbrella
In the lips of thunder, we never feel full
as rain slips from our mouths– the brick
streets are slicked with histories we will
not yet slip. Sediment lodged in the curb
will displace in time. Our tongues slicken
in the dry we create so we thirst for the
wet we tried simply to shield from ourselves.
(originally published in The 1932 Quarterly, Autumn 2018)
I Think of Giraffes Sometimes. I Hope They Sometimes Think of Me.
In Kathleen’s apartment in Oregon,
I ask her where even is home?
Clevelanders-turned-transplants,
maybe never knowing.
I see my mom’s mown lawn
in the green fields our baseball
team travels through, my friends
in tweets spitting scores or stats.
These, I don’t care about,
but I join in discussion.
Blue hands to high-five,
then to put my phone down.
(originally published in Hobart, Winter 2018)