My body’s buried here, Ray Kurzweil.
How to be a hill, bumpin’ sleds til mornin’ mist?
More slope than barren tree, though memory
shovels in through the nose–
hell, still got knees of green.
(originally published in Black Dog Review, Fall 2018)
Short
2014
Of course I remember how to be alone,
how to drag a lawn chair out to smoke
a shore and offer loneliness a bottle.
But there you would meet me
on a staircase of sand and we’d
gaze at the stars, meld into soft
landscape, cheek nuzzled in
a palm, starfish digging into
the sandwarm face of earth.
(originally published in Literary Yard, Summer 2018)
The Blinds
kaleidoscope of the world–
you needed
the only beauty
(nothing
I can unsee)
everyone is a field
your head on his
shoulder
(if it can happen
again
it will)
(originally published in Grasslimb Journal, Fall 2018)
Backroom
green teeth
under banana light
soda chemicals fizzle
out tubes in the wall
overhead dims
and brightens
shoeprint mud
on the floor
a brown apron
discarded
with others
(originally published in Literary Yard, Summer 2018)
Become Whole with Yourself
A cave, a raven horse-
hoofed sunlit human. Your journey
to know you forward: yourself
tar. Orange toward opening.
Darkness, fire, form,
wing.
(originally published in Indiana Voice Journal, Winter 2018)
Advil
I take one pill two
to mask what’s wrong in me
these hurtful words mouthing
sorry in the dark I shouldn’t rub
your back when my partner’s
on the coast on a beach here
it snows yes I know
this is no excuse tasteless tablet
smudged slate white mountain
I am the one percent meaning
I’m money poor but lucky to
live in the age of modern medicine
a dentist takes a drill
to my root and neither of us
feel anything a surgeon cuts
into Dad’s heart anesthetics
these aches we carry daily
the privilege why we don’t
say sorry when we mean it
at the drug store I buy a knife
(originally published in The Wayward Sword, Summer 2018)
Lavvy
in the coffee shop
you tuck a bundle
of lavender
into the v
of your shirt,
aim it at your nose
then type furious
emails to co-workers
gently
gently
(originally published in Crack the Spine, Fall 2018)
Kompromat
in a moscow hotel room
shadow brokers partied
with stolen american
cyberweapons over the
counterintelligence
they wanted public
the americans
drank everything
and partied through
the night
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Summer 2018)
Soon
Broken bottles on the bridge
above the blue Olentangy.
My time in this city is
limited, as is my body,
the future a compromise,
shards from the persistence
of believing in transcendence.
The sweltering sun pummels
my skin, exposed, as I wait for
a sign to cross the river road.
(originally published in indefinite space, Spring 2019)
Cloud
the raindrop
life (transience
is a home)
loneliness
forms
on clear days
rising out
of reach
& always
when you wake
(originally published in Literary Yard, Summer 2018)