this country music’s gunshots slinging through the wind wrapped around Anytown, USA
where I’ve never been anywhere outside my own mind traveled everywhere within this bag of
skin and blood bound to family I become further and further away from each day I bleed out my
own legacy owned by money by the river by the body bags I see everywhere I see a witness
(originally published in Moss Trill, Winter 2022)
If able to shield the cat who lives
with me from loud and unexpected noises,
I will press him to my chest and carry him
over to the staircase before pushing
down the coffee grinder, cup my hands
to his ears once the vacuum starts
running (though a gentle act of palms
on his party-hat ears is already enough
to make him sprint in the opposite direction).
Kingsford has grown used to gunshots on
television, but I can do nothing for the
barrage of fireworks leading up to
America’s Independence
Day, nor conspiracy theories
which run rampant in the sky
(because what better a home
for fake facts than fireworks–
impossibly deafening bursts of light
in the night). Recently, I have been
joking that I can talk to him one-
on-one in a shared animal language,
and he looks to the wall to relay
the story of some spider who skulked
across chipped paint in the morning
hours, above where I slept,
deep in a dream louder
than any external noise–
enough to quell the sort
of revelation that makes
me believe our futures
are fucked. I wake up
refreshed enough to wait
for the day’s new din
of whatever war’s
beating on our screens
and walls and
my heavying heart.
(originally published in Subnivean, Winter 2021)
Whichever– we were followed
by a love, chanting mantras
in the dark beneath each doll,
each horsehead. And to say there
was a countdown– I masked my own
face. Then fate bugsprayed the spirits
that wanted to haunt our hearts
in this crickety home forever.
(originally published in In Parentheses, Spring 2020)
Driving west to Columbus from my partner’s house
in Pittsburgh early morning and on I-70 around six
in the rearview there’s a giant burst of orange light nearly
deafening in its glory and my first thoughts are fire and fury
then you’re gone but no it’s a heavenly sunrise and I can’t
remember the last time I witnessed the sun rise though a few
days ago she and I were in Vermont about to hike an
overlook before sunrise to watch it but we couldn’t will
ourselves out of bed and what a world to wake to now
driving alone this big dramatic ball of fury revealing its
magnificence bathing land in light before it softens
how it could have been one or the other
a burst of beauty or unspeakable tragedy yet from a distance
a bomb might seem as beautiful and harmless as a sunrise
at least until the smoke how with fire too there’s a kind
of enchantment but for this a split second then the anguish
and fury for this sunrise greeting a thousand grieving days
(originally published in Old Red Kimono, Spring 2018)
I.
the overhead light is a python shining into my eyes
this office is hissing: drills, rotors, a hanging
S at the end of a passing sentence.
they have taken so many x-rays
of my mouth these past few weeks
there the infected tooth stares back
in its gray and black graveyard,
deep in its flaw
II.
the doctor numbs me with needle
puts a cloth in my mouth, a cape
to make my face a superhero.
it’s an uncomfortable placebo
makes me think of super-strength
defense as she scythes the pulp out of me
III.
the doctor says god,
this is a pulp boulder
I have been looking toward heaven
digging and scraping many silent minutes
IV.
a drill
bats squeal and fly from the cave of my tooth
V.
the assistant tag-team switches for
a different assistant
the doctor says we’re finally getting somewhere
on the radio:
♪ like a virgin. touched for the very first time ♪
VI.
the scent of bone
or blood
or gum
or healing
VII.
the assistant says she visited the chickens last week
cute as dickens
I learn chickens have no bladders
and no bone marrow
and here I hold my urine
VIII.
the doctor tells me open wide
shoving cotton in my mouth
♪ shout, shout, let it all out ♪
IX.
they’re trying to figure out the actress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
the doctor holds a scalpel over my mouth
the name at the tip of her tongue
After an eternity I offer
Hahdrey Hehurn
I did my part
they’re proud
and there are no complications
(originally published in Off the Coast, Fall 2017)
You have good reason
to be self-confident.
After all, this is what
the fortune cookie said.
After a dinner portion
of greasy lo mein
from New Peking.
After CNN reports
the president’s firing
of the FBI director.
This is a gross abuse of power,
and there is a gross amount
of noodles inside me.
Despite that,
I have good reason
to be self-confident,
I suppose.
I am reasonably certain
I still have a job.
I am reasonably certain
I am not under investigation.
There was no backdoor
deal struck with the restaurant
to ensure this would be
my particular
fortune.
All I did was order
the noodles via telephone.
Then I drove to the
restaurant to pick it up,
face-to-face.
I used my credit card
to pay for it, but
I will pay the bill.
In the plastic bag
they handed me,
there was a brown bag.
In the brown bag,
there was a white box
with my food in it
as well as chopsticks,
napkins, a fork, and
the fortune cookie.
That’s it.
All I’m saying is
if you don’t believe
me, investigate.
Anyone who says
differently
is reasonably suspicious.
(originally published in Landfill, Fall 2017)
to cut immigration
is to cut me half
-Filipino I am already
halved quartered diced you take
a knife to my mother she keeps
a knife at her neck we both are
American in the blade of the word
I used to pretend to be more
my more-accepted half
to have to choose
is to have nothing
(originally published in Serving House Journal, Fall 2017)
