When LeBron Returned to Cleveland, I Lived in Los Angeles Wanting to Come Home

All these quiet prayers
from two thousand miles away
to impact the spin of the ball–
hope that could travel
far enough to land
in the temporary nestle of a net.

 

(originally published in Triggerfish Critical Review, Winter 2020)

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)

The Kansas City Royals Cope With Loss

A river isn’t really blue. The Mississippi
has dried, and even love is transparent.

We adorn ourselves blue so loss
can be quantified in color. Such

is the brittle paintbrush, naked
and grieving, but we are not

the color of grieving,
nor tobacco spat in the dugout

in shame. We remember
the dirt, and who we loved,

long before we searched
clouds’ faces for ghosts,

her grays in the white
within eternal blue.

 

(originally published in ‘the vacant hinge of a song’, courtesy of Origami Poems Project)

LeBron Comes Home

Sawdust struck our eyes
when his teeth jawed
themselves against our tree.

His headband
constricted us like
a snake.

When he unclasped,
so did we.

Our bodies slackened
like absolved marionettes.
Held beers became
puddles on bar tables.

The yesterdays burnt
wax into our throats.

Today he is Atlas with the city
perched on his shoulders, the Earth

a lacquered basketball. Willingly,
now, we witness and worship his
every move, drawn by an influence
we ourselves do not carry with
every blink, every breath.

 

(Originally published in altered form in Perspective Literary Magazine – October 1st, 2014)