This fork in history could veer
wildly left, though the bus driver
announces he forgot his glasses
at home but memorized the route.
Don’t worry, I have been this way
before and before and whatever
obstacles you see before me
and before you belong in just
those places in the long telescope
observing the passage of time
(originally published in Linked Verse, Summer 2023)
Seconds
pass. Butterflies wing,
a note floats spring
sprawled across,
cursive,
swarming
into new jazz
harmony to
-gether in the
flying lease
of body.
(originally published in Ink Pantry, Summer 2025)
Now I have time
to experiment
preheat the room to three twenty five
saute the onions in butterflies
pour in garlic and butterflies
milkwhisk the butterflies
scrape the wings off my heart
and wait wait sixty-five to eighty–
to say what I have to say to you–
I can’t wait another minute.
(originally published in The Gorko Gazette, Summer 2024)
Out of all activities
to do in the world,
we choose to watch
what melts. The sugar-
frosted grass, low hills, love
of our red-brick building.
If our conversations
are jet streams, if high-
altitude, high stakes,
tension– let me
please leave and be
reborn as something cold
and forgettable.
What dinosaur wanted
to become a fossil?
In our years together
we accumulated enough
to burrow deep into
the earth. Millions
of years from now,
what some sentience
will discover is that
we were once separate.
(originally published in The Field Guide, Fall 2023)
we pretend to know
tomorrow
that we don’t
is both the plight
and light
in living
each day
a slow burning
candle
that dies
inside
the next
(originally published in impspired, Summer 2023)
At her Penn Hills home an endless view
of rain green wide windows. With sink hot
faucet water we tear banana leaf a piece
of wallpaper press the masa they prepped
into dried dark a sturdy table.
Drop sauce, fork pork, wrap ribbon
makes pride and we learn to live
again. Almost a year still fresh
the big bowl of dead animal we gather
around. Andrea says steam in leaf
adds floral flavor, a life
to death jiggling within us–
oh, sweet touch of camaraderie,
hugs on a late December
Saturday. You were afraid
we started the day too early, but
we are in our mid-thirties. I wanted
to begin yesterday the festivities
that let us remember why we
remain alive– brown butter cookies
and the love, so much love in the living
room. When we get to the presents–
having already unwrapped our proud
banana leaves, there are Penguin
classics, band t-shirts, soy candles
but what we’d trade for anything–
white elephant– is more time.
(originally published in Triggerfish Critical Review, Summer 2024)
Let’s go to Wildwood and get lost in
the rough waves of September. Stand
further from shore than ever, where
water’s shallow, sand firm though
fine enough to spiral into thoughts
where its strength dissipates and you
sink into a rough wave. Sometimes
what you need is to be pummeled by
the Atlantic. If you are not careful,
you could drown, but in the cerulean
calm of caesura, waves break all
around and forgive you. When
it is offered you want the air frigid
in the warmth of your sequence
of days so it can thrash the
fragileness of body and you will
not know what you have craned
your neck for. You’ll pull out
binoculars to view onlookers
on a distant, speeding sailboat
and you will see your life,
how fast it will pass.
(originally published in Stink Eye Magazine, Fall 2022)
The word just past
your grasp is deaden,
as in: I can’t believe
I’ve been at this job
for five years now.
Still, I wish I had
the fortitude
to last forever
without ominousness–
no heat death if you stare
out into infinity. No
loved ones dying
their hair black
in old age.
(originally published in DREICH, Fall 2023)
Learning how to swim–
can’t say I haven’t
counted hours stars
float in the night infinite
darkness I cannot claim
sanctity within us. You point
to Orion like a familiar
neighbor like I would point
to a passing thought or ripple
believing it significant
as the moment passes.
(originally published in Artvilla, Spring 2023)
I often dream of simpler times–
driving my car to a customer
with a bag full of food, and poof–
gone. Then the memory fades
in an instant. All of time
passing. Right now. Into the ether.
The clock has dropped its weary
hand a tick downward.
The other hand desperately
reaches toward the sun.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)