I attempt to translate the goo in my brain into something both palatable and relatable
whilst contemplating my grim employment prospects. Zigzag, zigzag go the roads
in a city I never expected to inhabit. Pittsburgh’s hills are steep. I expect at a certain
acceleration at an erroneous angle my Ford Fiesta will slow-motion backflip and
scrape the top side metal against the gravel and I’ll drop to where I started. You
ever read Catch-22? I keep picturing the pointlessness of the flying. The missions,
day-to-day. Figure eights inside the clouds and never further. I can’t with supervisors.
Hierarchy, don’t tell me what to do. I will, though. Mop, drive, fetch, catch, good
little doggy. I can barely keep my tongue in mouth. Can barely control my saliva.
(originally published in On Loan From the Cosmos, Spring 2020)
Short
What We Can Watch
without some satisfaction none of us will live
the dark will come back with leaden boots
we live on a screen we can watch every beat of our hearts
imagine how long our hair will curl
love tiptoes into deception
I can see the movie I made with her
we stare into the crowd with too much innocence
(originally published in Door Is A Jar, Winter 2021)
do you know these streets
I do I deaden them walking
I talk them alive in the spit
of my thoughts specks of
gravel in my brown leather
Clarks not made for distance
I say to a neighbor hello
and that’s it before I leave
for another neighborhood
Friendship park you can
move in loops and loops
around the brownish green
in view of hospital whose
restroom I use no one cares
what I do everyone is sick
I don’t care I am too my legs
burn with lethargy though
there are days I want to yell
at dogs who do nothing
wrong I want the freedom
to lick sandpaper barks
of trees and keep a butterfly
between my teeth until
something inside me says
feast or let go
(originally published in Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, Spring 2020)
The Moon
I talk about the moon
as if it’s cute but IT’S NOT
cuter than anything
sometimes I think I’m
cuter than the moon but
I’M NOT
(originally published in The Literary Yard, Spring 2020)
Antiseptic
Drink
the last beer
in the fridge.
The office
is a primordial
pool of bacteria.
(originally published in Hamline Lit Link, Summer 2020)
Starbucks
you stepped in dog
poop on your birthday
but still had a good birthday
we walked through windchimes
off golden sidewalks
& drank a vat of black coffee
free from a corporation
so desperate for your loyalty
all our other friends
reached into their pockets
to blow out their rewards, too
(originally published in The Daily Drunk, Winter 2021)
Near-Collisions
I have driven along red sand roads
knowing my speed uncontainable,
locked eyes with oncoming traffic
on drugs and drink. Death wants
to always remind me how close
we often get, that sometimes
he’s a blur rushing toward me,
and I must know to swerve.
(originally published in The Writing Disorder, Summer 2021)
Grandview Heights
I need this walk through the suburbs
summer heat has me a certain way
lovers have me a certain way
I need to clear my head with the zen
of weedwackers droning, an SUV’s blur and
whoosh, lawnmowers torturing the grass–
white noise, white birds, white hybrids.
walked with white sneakers in the mud
last night drunk in the rain through an alley
(originally published in RASPUTIN, Winter 2020)
Calendar Year
blue wheat
meat on the heart
he told me
gaze the world
to understand
heaven
the angels
scream under
trees
their glossy aura
spines
(originally published in Ink Sac, Winter 2021)
Self-Concert
The guitar hides from the sun– a shadow
of someone familiar singing. To bare my snake
skin wrapped around this temporary home.
Green of smile. Holes of jeans. Sweat
of beetles. Let me keep a tambourine
nearby. I want to make sound in the spotlight.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Fall 2020)