For Once I’d Like to Hear You Over My Brain

The endless universe of this coffee-church
I blend into the ground, ground
anxiety into yours, I met you there, pit-

pattering footsteps I couldn’t stop
listening to. I asked myself
if this was a joke

the way only nervous nothing I said
to you.         Yah-yah-yah.
I am awake, I know

over this river I
Jesus-walk miraculously
you reach your hand

to me–
             cold, wet illness.
             Neither of us are

here.

(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Winter 2021)

Profile Pictures

It was easy
in college
for every profile pic
to be a drunk photo
smiling. Beer cans
in hands in a bar,
at the beach,
in a house, in
a car. We were
all young and
happy
thinking us
adults. Legally,
sure, yes.
We were.
But the me
in those photos
wasn’t thinking
about bills
the endless
stack of debt
I still cannot
afford.
Of which
I was
in those moments
accumulating.
Like snow clouds
beckoning
over Lake Erie
I hoped would
cancel class
so I could drink.

 

(originally published in Wilderness House Literary Review, Fall 2018)

I Think of Giraffes Sometimes. I Hope They Sometimes Think of Me.

In Kathleen’s apartment in Oregon,
I ask her where even is home?

Clevelanders-turned-transplants,
maybe never knowing.

I see my mom’s mown lawn
in the green fields our baseball

team travels through, my friends
in tweets spitting scores or stats.

These, I don’t care about,
but I join in discussion.

Blue hands to high-five,
then to put my phone down.

 

(originally published in Hobart, Winter 2018)