we are sitting closer
to the television in a brand
new bedroom not
that we bought a new
house rather rearranged
everything the television
Playstation mini
tables dustballs morals
we never labeled
outside obvious
corners the air
conditioning vents in the faraway
summer I hope never
comes yes I am this
amount jaded the new colorful
reflections of the TV
beside its fresh horizon
almost like the screen’s
outside where I can finally live
my real life in pixelated terms
I know I know I am
conflicted about even
the architectural oxygen the wood
was inspected man just not
by me I mean girders in the semi
shallow underground been
scrubbing raw potato skins
only still to grok the boiled
intentions steaming the
mind’s kitchen I don’t got
knives I don’t got any
memory of the chicken
carrot stew just I often
feel infinitesimal I can’t
stop filling overfilling
the pot hot water simply
abundance very thankful
for plastic bags stuffed
in the cold seam of the
world our window
won’t open
(originally published in datura, Summer 2021)
winter
After the Polar Vortex
Sixteen degrees sounds like spring, so I go for a walk.
I haven’t left the house in days– restless heart, I needed
scenery until I step into unshoveled snow. I sigh and scrape
the spade against the sidewalk to clear the path for travelers.
A woman rolls a spare tire along the street and, seeing snow
stick to rubber, I decide my walk must end in beer. I follow
her in the direction of the store and buy a six-pack of Truth
and head back home, where my partner asks where I went–
I don’t mean to keep things from her. I just say I needed
to clear my head, and that it’s drinking season. She says
I thought sunshine was drinking season, and that’s true,
too– I can’t go outside without wanting to drink, whether
flurry or thunder. Whichever road I walk leads to wanting.
(originally published in The Literary Yard, Spring 2020)
Float Through
Today, I slide on slush on my drive. Unplowed roads, slippery odometer–
morning snow surprise. Pittsburgh’s a city of hills unavoidable, and later,
waiting on a grocery pickup, I stare into the rearview mirror at the frost-
tipped pines when a knock on my window removes me from my existential
stupor. I don’t know how to interact anymore. Crank the window the wrong
way. Peppermint mocha, the years past. I bought a latte this morning but did
not know how to order it. The Dunkin teens stared, dumfounded, and it was
a foggy day like this– in which I float through the happenings– that I last
crashed my car. In Los Angeles, I flew down the dry 405, beat after
a long day in a Hollywood studio, and was amazed at the hospital light
brightness as I passed Westwood, like I could snap my fingers and time
would once again resume, while five other lanes of traffic zigged around
me with no regard to my existence. I was like a visitor to myself dragged
back into being with silent smoke pouring out the mouth of my Ford’s
hood. The front was crumpled but the SUV I slammed into appeared
untouched. The sixteen-year-old girl called her dad to ask what to do.
She took my insurance, my number, then drove off with the rest of the
world, as I stood at the side of the highway waiting for someone to
help me go home, still, to this day.
(originally published in the chapbook Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press), Spring 2022)
Solace
It was not solace we sought in the woods,
but rather, logs to provide fire for years.
Having known too many temporary timbers that
smoke then ash in small stretches of time slung
across the small rooms one week to the next,
among the dying leaves we wanted no others.
To watch what turned red on the fringe of the
world’s balance on a sling so fragile we chose
to forget. How long have we known each other?
How long will we? Days whisk into years
without stopping. We know nothing will be
forever; just as every good memory builds
the foundation of happiness worn like vodka
on jeans. If there were a blemish it was houseflies
swept off the cabin’s hardwood. Wings on bodies
in the margins, inert. How soon for us, too.
How winds change in a week but the fire
we started on arrival lingered smoke after
the last departing tires moved pebbles from
the driveway into life’s wild, winding road.
(originally published in Dime Show Review, Winter 2019)
End of Relationship (Winter)
I demand forever with flurry and tempest
my voice scorched except you tell me where
to bury our ice because I dug it up with
a shovel the cemetery in our driveway
our kitchen our bedroom chiseled away
with yellow scraper cheap on the verge
of breaking
(originally published in Indiana Voice Journal, Winter 2018)
Southbound in February
Almost swerved to Akron
to delay our southbound silence
before another car skidded into steel.
We smoked exhaust
with sedans which scrunched
around us. Wiper squeals
revealed hymnal landscapes
through murky glass.
I revel in footprints buried by snow
yet do not know what–
if our black tires composed
cadenzas in the slickening slush,
ambulance’s red, beating
bongos thumping toward us
–what we could have said
that would have ever been enough.
(originally published in The Slag Review, Winter 2017)
January 28
I really want to drink today.
The sun is shining. It’s warmer than usual.
I should try to ween myself off, right? None of this cold
turkey shit.
I haven’t drank a drink this year, the miracle
of it. Today, I am alone.
I scrubbed white the kitchen tiles, but there are
always dirt stains, smudges when you look
a little harder.
Sanitized the kitchen table with towels,
swept its crumbs from the floor.
The cat sprints from one end of the room
to the other over
and over, imaginary laps.
What every day is, these days,
running a relay race, handing
the baton to tomorrow’s me
with the trust I won’t– today,
it’s a sleep’s worth heavier than yesterday.
Long minutes the placemarks I pass
I can’t make time go faster. It is my day
off work, and in its nothingness I trudge
through sludge. Old habit,
you don’t die hard because
you’re not dying. You’re
as alive as me: refreshed yet craving,
gazing through the window to the light-
stained street, the shadows cast from trees
out toward the river.
(originally published in Stickman Review, Spring 2018)
22 Degrees
walk winter
nights
and float she
may one day love
you ice
& gilded wing
a starling’s
distant song
for snow
she knows
means slipping
(originally published in Whistling Shade, Autumn 2018)
When I Start Drinking Again
I keep saying
when I start drinking again,
there are gonna be ground rules–
the main one being I can’t be
a fucking asshole–
and these include
nothing hard & nothing sweet.
& only beers, a few.
But I need to be honest
with myself right now.
(Originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Winter 2018)
Last Night You Took My Keys & I Need Them
snow has piled on my car it is so irrelevant
this cold undesire to work each day secretly I want
to draw your face with my pointer finger in the windshield frost with
xoxo but here’s the thing this particular morning is a long violin
fog ascending through the city if I can’t
go here is my excuse to go to you
(originally published in Columbia Journal Online, Winter 2018)