(originally published Spring 2017 in Belletrist, with a reprint in Wizards in Space)
technology
Plane Delay
You learn your plane
has been delayed
again.
You remind yourself it has nothing to do
with you. The cause must be
something mechanical– a loose cap or
calibration error. The crew
does not have to say it’s not you,
it’s us because by now you know
the sigh of steel wings, how planes take
a while to ascend anyway.
How insignificant– this delay
stretches hours and a kind
voice speaks through white
noise on the loudspeaker like
she wants to say there is something
we can do to make a difference.
The plane will have the sky when
it is ready. Until then,
do not say it is broken.
(originally published in Little Patuxent Review, Winter 2016)
Pretty Autumn Sunset
Blackbirds suspended in triumvirate.
Clouds in a sea of burnt clay
mold into a blanket, the bed
unmade. Every beautiful sunset,
look:
see the others on their phones
snap photos for strangers,
likers, digital lovers.
Lowball grandeur on a
five-inch screen.
It’s gone in a moment, anyway,
the pixelation of life,
bloated
and trapped
and yours.
Palm trees stand as windmills,
stilled, and they cannot fan
the vertical Culver sign,
risen like held smog.
Headlights on cars move
indistinguishably in time-lapse circles,
one after the other after the other.
(originally published in The Literary Commune – Issue #4, April 2015)
Egyptian Ratscrew
Waiting for a spade, or any jack, really.
The pool is deep in the shallow end.
Waxy chlorine splashes your baby oil eyes.
The sun lies between the tanlines on our skin
which make us ever chameleons. Not that we shift,
but we eat where we are wanted.
I give you the iPod touch with the black fungus.
You twirl your index finger.
Then we leave. The window cranks open.
(originally published in Little River – Issue 4)