thoughts from
the bottle I want
everyone & everything
no one around loneliness
imprints into sand
a hand desperate for a body
(originally published in G*MOB, Spring 2022)
Short
Trust
I did not listen to my inner
monologue when it told me
to stay home and watch
The Novice. I went to Trace
Brewing when it was bright
but you sat in the dark
when I needed light. I
said one drink, one drink
only, then on the two-block
walk back the clouds
were down, they felt
attached to you and
I kept stepping on
plastic bags and
scrunched-up napkins.
To arrive home I had
to bisect my conscience
and wait: how much
of myself to give
after giving?
The water tower
in the distance
a perpetual blue
balloon.
(originally published in DoubleSpeak Magazine, Spring 2023)
Cyclicality
A son walks into black sand.
The pit contains multiples.
Milky Way spiral–
our beam emerges from the arm.
What surprise and perfume until the end.
Long before religion’s birth.
(originally published in Communicators League, Fall 2021)
… Is a Memory
a leaf in hand, a chickling…
eyes cold with earth, the black-
gray sketch of wrinkled fingers
where breath rustles not leaves
but time itself…
broken pencil tips
(originally published in White Stag #SPIRIT Anthology, Fall 2023)
Today
It is too much for a person
to unpack happenings
in the space of a day.
Yet each of us do it
invariably independent
of everyone else.
Deep breath.
Look–
(originally published in The Magnolia Review, Summer 2020)
Mechanics of Mundane Things
I have always questioned
the mechanics of mundane
things, such as how
the dishwasher works
or where pants land
in relation to where
I placed them initially
in the washer, but birds,
I never question
how they work. They
have wings and they
flap them, what’s
the problem?
(originally published in The Stray Branch, Fall 2023)
A Statement on Religion
Perhaps divinity is in devotion– pages of text
over thousands of years, eternal rambling
in the clockwork ticking the days to etch in
stone the wings I’d searched away, blind
faith in running water, erosion of the endless
nights I’d stay awake to eke out meaning.
(originally published in Penmen Review, Summer 2022)
Acquaintance
I know nothing
about you anymore.
Can’t remember conversations.
Sometimes you are a leaf
blowing past the yard of memory,
a whisper likening
myself to wind.
(originally published in Subterranean Blue Poetry, Fall 2020)
Fish on the Shore
How wriggly, how slippery
these beaches of men– like sand
between your toes, in your toenails–
they washed up in the storm to take
up space wherever they can, however.
(originally published in Euphemism, Fall 2021)
Precarious
sometimes to sneeze is
a wave crashing onto
a piano at the top
of a staircase
and the force
of rejection
is but a small
concerto
with fins
(originally published in WordCity Literary Journal, Spring 2023)