about at least the weather
the summer mosquitos
won’t stop eating me red
bumps along ridges
of skin dinner and sweat
from walking humid heart-
shaped streets I’m out
of shape burned steps
every dollar I waste’s
not spent on me but
oh how I’m saturated
(originally published in Agony Opera, Summer 2021)
Water molecules cause the inflation–
how the heart expands several times
in the span of too-few seconds.
The depths of my sweetness,
you call suffocating– the airbag
after collision. A time bomb–
we promised to open the door
before making a mess,
but we kept growing inside
ourselves. Body inside body,
slow spinning made us dizzy.
We were fine before. Small,
we never knew the depths
of our grandness.
Even then, we were sugar.
We opened our mouths
and licked hot the walls.
In the process of swelling,
we long to burst, to stick
to a heart that holds
the excess.
(originally published in Umbrella Factory, Fall 2018)
The only good thing in this city
is my 1968 Coupe– long, slick, olive
green. Brakes, good. Tires–
fair. I may have worn the rubber too quickly
the way I sped through red lights after you said Jesus
would save me in these hard rains that summon
mud from yesterday, hell onto asphalt, and hiding
under the sheet you wouldn’t show me
your face anymore, said everything
turns to wine in time, but in this city there
are thousands of dry fish waiting for rain,
and you can be a kind of Jesus, you can
redeem your soul for bread.
(originally published by Eunoia Review, Fall 2016)
