loud darkness waiting
for the party after
a friend’s wedding
and her people come
to the table I saved
for an hour however
they sit at another table
and an old man
I don’t know
sits at the one I am at
in so many ways this party
part and parcel
merely a box
I open for
connection
(originally published in Monterey Poetry Review, Summer 2020)
I don’t know anyone
but the gnats swarming
around me &
the stranger
next to me calls them
wedding bugs
marriage begins with wings
then seeks blood
sucking glimpse of sweat
on skin sugar all the single
guests swat at the air
around them familiar
the way we complain
of heat so beg
for rain to form in
these shrouds of clouds
to cool us down
it’s nice to have something
tangible to wish for
(originally published in Razor Literary Magazine, Spring 2018)