Sadness is a chewable tablet
in the fall. The riptide
returns with a little less
water in the hourglass
than yesterday. There is a bottle
with your name on it, a plastic
orange, pills you don’t believe in
but I believe in you and your bare-
branch will. Every year it all ends
and each time,
leaves appear again.
(originally published in Chronogram, Spring 2025)
We rearranged the patio
though no one’s allowed
back. Silver chairs survived
the winter, now the virus.
The navy rug we slid on
brick, under long legs.
We hung string lights under
nostalgic blue, a horsefly
floating by. We put our porch
tables there in negative sun
when I said the new people
watching is through barbed
wire, through dead weeds
overlooking distant sidewalk
behind the abandoned printing
press and the parking lot
of Rite-Aid. There
I saw a congregation
shouting and prowling
abandoned concrete.
All I could picture
was ubiquitous spit–
how will the world
seem clean when
we are allowed
the world again?
Beaks of birds,
always lurking.
(originally published in Ginosko Literary Journal, Summer 2021)
I sit by the fan
this May afternoon
alive forever
in the green
of our home-
made salad
(spinach, chickpea,
yellow pepper, tahini),
sore and sweaty
from carrying air
conditioners up
steep hallway stairs.
Using the heat-
gun and pliers
I straighten
my brain’s
antenna.
Our argument
becomes static
on a tube TV
in someone
old’s living
room.
(originally published in San Antonio Review, Winter 2023)
Ohio temperature drops forty in
the span of a day and suddenly all
returns to a slow slog. Open
the window when waking up
to reveal the sky spat snow
but when I leave the house
for work sun’s out and wind
sings a chorus of cold. I don’t
know what to make of it anymore.
I left this state I’d-rather-not-
count-the-years-ago because of this
uncertainty planted in the dead
cement of winter’s sputtering
to life and again the interstate
is in view. Give me a reason
to again. Everything around me, how
the days don’t seem to pass anymore,
a shuffling of cards. I sit
waiting for the old dealer to
hand me a full house in the
amber glow of spring.
(originally published in Fine Lines, Winter 2022)
This is a binding between nature and mankind
unexplainable through philosophy. The trees
want to reclaim us or, perhaps, themselves.
-K. Santiago, “The Whispers in the Wild”
World Cup – athletes at their peak
when the affliction struck.
Crushed leaves in snot on tissue –
it’s nothing. I was Ubering people
around Columbus, heard the chatter.
Can trees grow in brains? Is the new
trend snorting deciduous?
I tapped the CNN app– first it was
a world-class saxophonist struck
down with a green cold.
Next, football stars from Paraguay
and Russia, all blowing chunks
of trees into white, softer trees.
The first doctor to log a patient
said it’s nothing to worry about.
After a week the test showed invasion:
prickly pines a long spine in the nose
and the headlines bleated MEAT TREES!
It was early morning in the haze
of dreaming when my nose dripped forest–
I wiped my hand across the stream,
the flecks of blossoms blooming.
(originally published in Cough Syrup Magazine, Spring 2020)
Smoking, joking winter asking how to
take things slow.
Drinking, sinking field is thinking about
to let spring go.
Laughing, baffling cold front having one last
frigid kiss.
Slicing, striking freak-snow lightning– go on,
make a wish.
The cherry blossom knows there is a chance she’ll never bloom.
Wish for her, dear poet. Wish she’ll flower soon.
(originally published by Toe Good, Winter 2018)
you
painted
my head
white
soft hands
planted roots
on my scalp
spring warmth
cherry blossoms
in your laugh
petals
on our tongues
(originally published in Gnarled Oak, Summer 2017)
I am a sitting landfill beef
lettuce special sauce
a sepulchur in my Ford
& in this warm January
the trees are still dead
one eye open I imagine
forests stretching tired
legs & staying silent when it’s time
to speak spring
(originally published in KAIROS, 2017)
everything springs to life
again your last
relationship your new
relationship these are strings
on never-ending
balloons with brains inside
of them and hearts
at the center of the brains
beating thinking
if we fly a little higher
there’s no going back
(originally published in Dragon Poet Review, Summer 2017)
I have convinced myself
all birds fly as soon as they see sky
I know each wing on each one
is different
Grounded I tend to speak aluminum
from the grand piano of my throat
It is a sunny thirty
The sun beams over a painting
of a palm supporting an oak
Believe me I want my tongue
to bloom good petals
I cannot get enough of being
alone
Imagine a single light
at the far end of a cave
so faint you must remember
you’re awake
Blow the dust
from the ivories
Play flat notes detuned
through my lips
I want the truth
yet spit loose gravel
into the chasm
of my lover’s ear
(Originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Summer 2017)