Sitting in the kitchen
of my childhood home,
longing to be home,
I know I’ve lost another
one, another in a string
of partners, balloons of
many colors floating to
some high-up place
where I thought
we both would be
(originally published in The Stray Branch, Spring 2018)
I don’t believe a word you say. The stairs
separate us because you’re on another
level. Gravity is what pulls us together.
& absence of death. You talk in spirals.
I want to follow. A wind-up rotor wheels
his way back. Intransient movement.
I believe in higher planes
when looking to the sky in airports.
(originally published in The Stray Branch, Spring 2018)
a frog sings
effortlessly
on the pond
my dog sleeps
on my bed
dreaming
the poem
I am trying
to write
(originally published in Beechwood Review, Summer 2016)
spare a key
you industrial
revolution
you need the split
bark
not the forest
not the wood
not the temple
not the gate
unlock the room
you need you
(originally published in Randomly Accessed Poetics, Spring 2017)
Force plus distance creates the want.
Machines make work easier to do:
pick up the phone and call her.
A sloped surface can move the heart
from one peak to another by decreasing
exerted force per beat while increasing
the distance over which the want
can travel– a simpler way to have
without the work of wanting.
(originally published in Randomly Accessed Poetics, Spring 2017)
I cracked my phone screen
on my first date without you.
I carried it in my back pocket, like always,
though maybe I postured myself differently,
finally sitting up straight enough
to carry my own weight.
I didn’t look at my phone
until after the date. By then,
I could no longer remember you
without the shattered glass–
the flawless screen was not made
from our blazing beach days
of black seaweed and slithering kites
that begged the wind to let go,
where footsteps parted sand
to lead the tide into ourselves,
to let the moon drag our bodies
into the ocean’s boundless mirrors
where, enveloped in reflections,
we could only gasp for air.
(originally published in Metonym, Fall 2017)
on your way from Los Angeles
to New York, I’ll tell you
there’s nothing to do here but drink
can you see our friendship
gripping skeleton bottles?
before we stumbled into every hazy bubble
of unfilled expectations
we called L.A. city by its name
then other cities called our names
like somewhere in this world
wanted us
(originally published in Red Fez, Winter 2017)
You love me like the artificial
bone loves the dog, leather
smack and toothmark.
I bark at the aqua wall, whimper
when thrown to the Venetian. I fleck
paint, dig nails into sheetrock.
My saliva carpets this floor, all tongue
and hunger, lapping water like
it’s the only thing keeping me alive.
(originally published in Page & Spine, Spring 2017)
Someday you will like
the way you look.
You are a mirror unbound
to reflection
but you are present
in raindrops,
and puddles learn
to love their
craters.
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Autumn 2016)
