the plan Sunday was take it easy
1 drink at the new brewery
instead we ran into 2 friends
then drank in the sunlight
among dogs on the patio
we walked five miles
through a cemetery
through the city
to another brewery
got drunk
on automated ordering
tech for our fast times
we packed Spider-Man 2 cards
we thought we would play
instead we drank with 2 friends
in 90 degree heat
taking it easy
(originally published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Winter 2023)
open shutters overlook
bells umbrellas energy
I watch all day I am
one pedestrian watch
as clock hands reach
slowly one way up
to us which direction walk
the bridge over the river
time the cobblestone path that
firms as marks hands gaff tape
on what slips this
plane this coil weeks
wanting not just this country
to last forever but what seeds
of doubt to be taken by wind
stolen by gnats
who sneak and fly into our space
if they could digest what
we put down plans to live
here in two years that cannot
come too fast it will arrive
a bullet train when we are
sleeping on a humid night
in the future
our
traveler bags brown
and green means
the forest meaning opposite
of open road if time
were this ambiguous than
I want nothing to do with it
but its hands are in everything
bugs in the unfinished chianti
drown and nothing
I can do to help
and I don’t want to
drink but I do
(originally published in The Round, Spring 2025)
Now that the hurricane
has passed with clear
skies, I have a chance
to explore my new
neighborhood.
I cut down trees
in my overgrowth
of memory. A long
driveway leads to
an abandoned mansion,
brown-bricked and sturdy.
The ghosts inside
I would evict completely
but I have some questions–
how did your love end?
I know one side
of the story, this mess
of leaves the formless
speak, garbled
waves a fog’s
difference. In how
I hear– in your
perception saying
what? Over and
over, chewing
the sustenance
I was fed. Ruins
rising in the moonlight
and you do not believe
in astrology or ghosts,
anything supernatural
except God, yes,
the bubbles of doubt
float into your vacancies
of faith you placed
between your thumb
and forefinger,
the Leaning Tower
of our trust
that could have been
plucked from
any old hairline.
(originally published in Dandelion Scribes, Winter 2025)
For a fleeting moment what was it
I felt? Happiness? Ah, in the sun,
an unburdened existence, a voice
behind me kowtowing into his
invisible phone, and I even looked
both ways before crossing Friendship
at the crosswalk– a pedestrian
wearing white shoes long-sullied
from the dramatic act of living,
and a gaggle of bicyclists passed
and I swear I smelled the murk
of sweat but it did not matter,
I was moving through this world
still, almost on a mission, though
I must admit I was aimless,
and still am, but for a second
the sun grazed my skin
to reveal a little light within.
(originally published in Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, Summer 2024)
Still, the dogs watch me from behind
a fence when I walk the opposite route–
against traffic on Gross Street–
the view changes enough to convince
me I am in a different place in my life
with its industrial constellations,
a parking garage sparkling with hovering
hospital lights while skeleton neighbors
decorate homes for Halloween and blue
jays all seek a different weather. Maybe
October chill has knocked a new belief
into my teeth. Brick by brick I walk
by buildings of my past that survived
into the current, too, and a leaf
from an unseen tree floats
onto the chest of my charcoal
jacket. I pin it there
for the days I will forget.
(originally published in Ariel Chart, Spring 2024)
In the alley toward the strip yellow
plant caution tape walking through trash
valley to Iron City Beer no one
needs to pack bags stepping on
white rocks on Sassafras the KEPT ONES
under clouds. Wonder who makes
it out alive. Plastic bag with Lysol
wipe flapped in the wind when tossed
in the trash. Another event stupidly
beautiful to admire. When I look away
I could crash into sunflower NO PARKING
signs. What masochist places
these in the middle of a long busy stretch
of sidewalk? Now bees won’t leave
me alone in this heat
(originally published in Spinozablue, Fall 2022)
Because Tony once said he knew
Columbus and Los Angeles the way I do–
I have not yet developed a poetry of
place for Pittsburgh. Three years in and
still the surprise hills, the way I always
feel– still– an outsider wending my way
through confusing streets. I’ve worked with
Kailee’s dad longer than I lived with Paige
and still we haven’t had a deep conversation.
Everywhere I go there remains a sense of some
thing deep that needs explored. The way
I walked Los Angeles streets at night–
the endless sprawl– must be the same,
but Pittsburgh’s smaller, the graffiti
more familiar, how it’s all a sketch of home.
(originally published in Vilas Avenue, Winter 2023)
I did not listen to my inner
monologue when it told me
to stay home and watch
The Novice. I went to Trace
Brewing when it was bright
but you sat in the dark
when I needed light. I
said one drink, one drink
only, then on the two-block
walk back the clouds
were down, they felt
attached to you and
I kept stepping on
plastic bags and
scrunched-up napkins.
To arrive home I had
to bisect my conscience
and wait: how much
of myself to give
after giving?
The water tower
in the distance
a perpetual blue
balloon.
(originally published in DoubleSpeak Magazine, Spring 2023)
In those wild woods, poison sumac
would distance one from active tracks–
jagged moan, trembling steel, cerulean sky
waiting for your call: an endless horizon,
a warbler singing quietly
into night.
(originally published in Every Writer, Spring 2017)
We inhaled fog on the Golden Gate
along with traffic exhaust.
Foghorns cried names
we did not recognize.
Car horns, names we gave ourselves.
From this high, you said, there is no good
way to fall. We scrunched our fingers
to encapsulate the small
fragility fog brings– how, in a moment,
everything can change / fog
of ghosts rippling waves from long-
passed boats / fog of sitting in silence,
windows down / fog of steel cable’s
fading red / fog of missing
what we lost while sun cuts a way
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Fall 2016)