You Only Post on Instagram When in Other Countries

Swiss mountains, Chilean volcanoes, a beach in Vancouver–
currently, my hands grip a steering wheel. In the passenger

seat is a black bag. Inside, a paper bag. Inside, a salad, or
sandwich, or scone, or soup. The bread is probably hard

as stone. I scroll your travels from the safety of a stoplight.
I am far from the only wanderlust trapped in the confines

of a tipped job. I’d drive my Ford into the ocean. Sink into
the Atlantic and arrive somewhere you haven’t heard of.

 

(originally published in Lines + Stars, Spring 2019)

In Pittsburgh, the First Time,

you told me Friendship is a road
split by two roads, parallel to Liberty,
and I told you that was a poem,
but you said, no, I’m just giving you
direction, and I looked up from your eyes
to the green sign reading Friendship Ave
and knew what you meant. Friendship–
we had yet to spend our first night
in the city, one that would end in
a dark cocktail bar for a dance party
that never materialized. In the morning,
we rode rented bicycles with bent
spokes and a click in their spinning
and I could only follow your lead
and cycle through streets still unfamiliar
to me– we weaved through lonely roads
to the Strip District, then stopped
at the Sixth Street Bridge to admire
the glimmer of the river that warm
winter day and continued until
we found the hill to Randyland
too steep to ride so, off our bikes,
we walked side-by-side up the path
until reaching our destination;
we locked our broken bikes
and kept walking.

 

(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Winter 2019)

Leaving California

I deliberated when traveling the country
because there was no one anywhere waiting,
no one on either coast with arms open wide to hold
me in their jacket in an ocean breeze– no, grime
rocked from screen to shade. The tide of film
frothed over tours viewing Santa Monica
for the first time as if, as they had hoped,
there was something new to see.

 

(originally published in streetcake, Winter 2018)