Walking over paved bricks
under sunlight in January,
it is quiet enough
to hear the earth shiver
from her breath, far
from the Los Angeles heat
I grew used to– a hundred
police cars wailing down
Vermont past blurs
of fleeting sidewalks,
boarded-up businesses
adorned in graffiti,
and dead black bags
full of not-Autumn
leaves.
(originally published in Home Planet News Online, 2017)
The city was dead when we went
so we intended to fill ourselves
with black magic found
in skeletons on the street.
Look how roots of fallen
trees meld with earth.
Go where lines still meander
on your palms–
we did not share with ghosts
when we reached the end,
no words whispered into steam
of dim lights and Darjeeling,
no further graffiti for your blue
telescope eyes peering through time
to the origin of your cosmos, when
your essence poured from your sleeves
but carried less starlight than it does now.
(originally published in The Stray Branch, Spring 2018)