blue wheat
meat on the heart
he told me
gaze the world
to understand
heaven
the angels
scream under
trees
their glossy aura
spines
(originally published in Ink Sac, Winter 2021)
surreal
The Persistence of Memory
Salvador Dali
liked his spaghetti
soft as can
be: drooping
off the plate.
But Dad always
said stop playing
with your food!
I wish I could
have figured it out
before he died. I
would have told
him I was toying
with time.
(originally published in Ethel Zine, Summer 2020)
Descendant of the Big Bang
Self-absorption has turned me
into a selfish alien. On Earth,
we live in isolation
waiting for the cosmic dawn
to return in a brilliant explosion
that would rock this rock like
a great song
performing on its uppermost
stage, all of my being
expanding like a flower
until the whole universe
opens wide
like a Great Eyeball.
Our role will be to find
inexpressible
connection– a ring
of stars passing rings
of fire, each a small
cluster of blue petals.
(originally published in The Subnivean, Winter 2021)
Memory Foam
here I look at the same room I’ve spent many nights in
the diffuser diffusing the world’s hues into you & me
the cat composed of smoke
Sara takes a sick day & the room crawls with veins
I watch my own age spiderweb into me flipping pages in a manuscript
this room is made of hair this room breathes fur webs
this is what brains are made of
every imprint of hand
when you sit down this bed this ocean floor this beginning
(originally published in Ariel Chart, Fall 2017)
Brisk Walk
do not miniaturize the bicycle torso between blue wheels
nor the twig tree broad-shouldered nor yellow-trousered man
walking the candy cane
coming shapes myself an igloo of time contracting
mirror view hot pyramids the tips crumble so reaper crows
confuse for wheat
the sculpted falsity in the curving sidewalk
those pickled legs just churn and churn
(originally published in Cafe Aphra, Winter 2018)
Ephemeral Garden
The map leads from bloom to wing
to sky– we followed gracefully before
black swan wings haunted our spines.
I was tangled in the garden of words
and you did not believe a thing
I said. I cowered in sagebrush
to study flying squirrels (the wingless
claim the sky). I told you I would never tell
another lie because what is truth
in an ephemeral garden, where the birdsong
of thrashers becomes language?
I attempt to look away from truth
but the truth is, nothing in this world
shocks me any more than when I crane my head
to see the nightmare we have become.
(originally published in Zany Zygote Review, Spring 2017)
Delaware
Why Dogs Would Be Great Film Directors
It was tough to leave for work this morning,
collie’s silhouette usually at the top of the stairs
a shadow slinking, eyes glowing.
Your heart nearly stopped flailing its arms
as it sank deeper and deeper into the ocean.
When you watched Silver Linings Playbook
you saw your dog in the face of Bradley Cooper
those dark eyes shining in the greater darkness–
driving home with the key stabbing the ignition,
you drove wanting anything to please you.
It wasn’t in the trees or the swaying lights
or the Post-It notes crumpled in the bagless bin–
no, collie ran in circles. You reached for a treat,
your heart compiling sand and blowing glassworks–
collie on set with Bradley Cooper, his eyes
on her galvanized eyes and all she wants is ham
you’ve never seen a ham this juicy and
why am I excited about ham and
collie with her eyes makes Bradley
see the ham, want the ham,
want the ham like never before.
(originally published in Nude Bruce Review, Summer 2016)
Alley Walk Into the Dark Park
ambled through snow to my bowl of ice
my calloused tongue on her cold
the bowl’s organ
shriveled
I was a white door
textured and crumbling
in that manticorean dumpster
buds of teeth and name
the mane
where that doorknob would have been
the park on a picnic
her triangular table limbs
white oaks unhinged
the thunderstorm
and her cold drooping javelin wings
(originally published in Peculiar Mormyrid)
“I Wish I Knew How to Quit You,” Says the Moon
We know it is us
who wish to quit the moon.
We close our eyes our jaggedness
could drive the sun away but never
in the way our metaphors could.
Still we write the moonlight
into the sand and growl
at the tide
and again
when the tide returns.
We cry from the shape
our lives took to intersect–
an hourglass
filled with sugar,
or a snail. Or a million
hourglasses, a million snails,
a million glimmering shells
in a measured slowness.
You were talking about the sunrise–
but I never wanted to look.
(originally published in Thin Air, Spring 2016)