A Year

I wish it were impressive, my insistence
to gnaw at the root of what clings to me,
whatever doubt’s the day’s soup.

A kind of droning in my soul that rings
and bleats. Speaks for me when I must
be spoken for, my might in a cave.

I long sometimes for lonelier days. Too much
noise in the knock of someone else’s luck,
a hardwood for human myth.

Grant me humility to do no wrong. I had a year
to get everything right, and still I waited past
the crow’s deadline, let the line fly

recklessly into the lake.

(originally published in Nauseated Drive, Winter 2022)

Countdown

Vodka I would glug from a wound
on my forearm, health preached and instructed.

I said I saw a liver pumping liquid from the sky
but the crowd called it cirrus. I could not differentiate

lust from love, not in the waning daylight,
not when I am trying to make it

the rest of the year wanting to forget
its starting incident (the backyard pond

shimmering in the moonlight amidst televisions
of confetti). The public countdown ends

at zero but I keep counting, never an end in sight,
always with my eye on the next

golden apple to descend into a crowd.

(originally published in BOMBFIRE, Spring 2021)

shining
in the sunlight
of our driveway

I go inside
to tell Dad

come see
what
I
found

no hesitation:
he squishes
its golden
guts out

a thing like
that

he says

is nothing
more
than a nuisance

but I keep
thinking
about that beetle

impossibly one
of a kind

and today
I watched
a boring

black
beetle

scurrying
across
the pavement
of Goodale Park

and disappear
into grass

and I thought

the ground
is teeming
with beetles

if I just dig
a hole
deep enough

I might
be able
to apologize

(originally published in Pouch, Fall 2018)