In the moment before now we wait
for the song to end.
We have a bag by the door;
clothes, papers, pills.
We clutch a note in our breath,
chins raised to meet it.
How I wish there was no time
to see thoughts in your hand;
a locket close, to have this moment
unbound, a sheet on our past
like snow from a cottonwood,
but it is now. The note full
in our throats, hot
kicking.
Even as it goes we know
a year from now, we
will feel its echo ringing.
Originally published by: The Dillydoun Review in spring 2021
A room to be felt in
I built a room for you.
Grey grass curls against bruised
walls. If I could touch you here
I would. Instead,
a bicycle bell in wind.
The grass swell
quieting, quieting.
If I buried myself here,
my arms lacing with tree roots
as it bows for you, could I
feel you walking?
Would you know,
eyes closed for the smell of rain
that you were not alone?
Originally published by: The Oddville Press in winter 2021
Reset
I have painted my bones to a new color, one
unlike yours. What greater compliment
could I manage?
I lean against your wind, name my steps
to spite you.
Any day, your song could bloom in my skin,
rise my limbs to shaking, make me
swing against goldenrod limbs;
kill me in that I am
below you.
None could be where you stand,
the tower of eyes,
my childhood spent
to feed you.
Let me break myself
to grow a new shape; break
my arms so they may open.
Such a soft word, reset.
Originally published by: Literary Heist in winter 2020
Deerhorn sprouting
The orbital patter of polite
reproach which grinds the
semblance day into a soft
nub, deerhorn sprouting.
A hart mounted with glass,
my stunted reach, line by
flinch cast into such quiet,
such cold. They will not see
my words until I write them
with rivets in the gouache sky,
the ash on my tongue, mine.
Originally published by: The Oddville Press in spring 2020
Unquiet
My body made of glass shows scars, a new courage.
Cuts catch the light like fishline, a rain of them
on the walls of my kitchen. Was it in my body
or in my birth that I would live unquiet, a rolling storm
through windows, my skin a season flashing.
I will call this mine.
Originally published by: The Oddville Press spring 2020
The morning that you died, I read about a flood
about the earth growing soft, walls
splitting like fruit.
I would not have waited either.
There is no place to store
our grief, no
white walled room
pierced with uniforms
for mourning, no
flowers,
so when it comes we breathe
opened mouthed, like children.
I’m found
sitting on the floor.
When they mail me things of yours
they will sit in a corner of my room
for days, a floor adrift in muddy waves
until they cannot harm me.
Originally published by: North of Oxford spring 2020
I built a cave in my body
for the three of us to hide.
I will do the breathing for us.
They will not take you
outside.
Originally published by: North of Oxford spring 2020
Leyline
The line strung between our twin
cities hangs heavy with wine-
stained coffee cups, hours pressed
in DVDs to glitter and spin in
the wind which grows cold
to reach you. We make music
plucking our anchors, watching
the hum travel like a shiver up
the spine of our fishline phoenix,
arched darling in the sky, netted
sweetly to catch whispers in
cupped hands, to shelter
all our missing.
Originally published in the Collabor18 Anthology: Stronger Together fall 2019
Daughters, spring
Without mirth or mercy,
the field before us roars
with laughter, as if we
cannot pluck their heads,
weave their spines
into crowns. Their reeds
cannot snap our knees
if they do not bow.
Originally published by: Panoply fall 2019
The patient fractures after
There are some truths we do not think about often; his cat that he stopped looking for, the cat’s brother who went to his aunt? His cousin? There are other truths that we think about with the frequency of tooth brushing; the leftovers in the fridge which stayed longer than he did, the last words “I’m tired.” Then there are the truths that are not true, that we will debate about, angrily. What was the last game we played together? What did he cook that day, pork chops? Ribs? There are still other truths that we will not think for a long time, perhaps a year or two years, and then they will take the weather. When he died, there was a bucket of vomit next to his bed.
He will continue dying after he dies. His board games will be taken and put in an untouchable place. The couple with a single painting of his will separate, and the painting will only hang on one of their two walls. We will all start moving to the country, to the city. We will not listen to the music he liked, except maybe briefly, maybe one day when we want to cry while driving, and then we will listen and we will struggle to breathe and the pain will be so deep, so complete that it will scare us.
We will touch his death over and over again, frantically, trying to find new pain in it and largely succeeding. We will look at pictures of him and listen to videos where he is laughing and think, “Thank God, thank God for this.” We cannot remember our own wailing, but we will miss the feeling of it. The clarity of our pain.
We will have other deaths, all of us, many times. The graveyard he is in will fill, and strangers will stand next to it, be buried next to it. Cars will rear end each other near it and the drivers will spend some time looking in it’s direction, waiting for a police car, not knowing him but feeling some fraction of the weight of death.
There will be things that do not relate to him at all. We will own pets he never met, eat at restaurants that opened after he was already dead, buried, gone. We will have children who will not know he existed, or if we tell them, they will forget. Or, we will not have children, we will have coworkers, we will have friends, we will tell jokes that he would not have laughed at, watch movies he would not have cried at, cook meals he would not have eaten. We will do these things and we will not think of him, sometimes.
Originally published by: North of Oxford fall 2019
Empty beats
You are alone when the rain hits
feeling fevered, watching the wind
fling strings like spittle on the
window. Maybe you should be
driving in noplace, so that you can
be hungry, so that you can be
contained, so that you can practice
and perfect almost sleeping,
bobbing, almost slipping under a
weight that is human and easily
addressed before you shudder and
snap back into yourself, again,
again. Again. Maybe you should be
drunk to make the violence easier,
maybe you should be apologetic,
pensive, expressing regret. Maybe
you should be in the trees,
saturated, now, with the slate-
colored sleet, their smells
ripening into something certain,
maybe you should get some sleep.
Originally published by: LAROLA summer 2019
A poem about my mother
I am writing a poem about my mother
the way I always do, through water, so
her body dilates. I cannot write her arms
a discernible length, her hands open
or closed, only her figure above and
the places I knew to go under my skin
where I could chime quietly. She taught
me how to hold my breath as she had
for years. I heard that she could sing
before I knew her.
Originally published by: North of Oxford winter 2019
Girl threat
She learned her hunger from
the southern sun which laps
against car windows, blistering
pool water until it glitters like
a knife. Who could blame her,
her body licking like fire, known
to itself as her hips hum little
laundry songs. When you hear
hushed voices, you lean in.
Originally published by: North of Oxford winter 2019
Sweetchild
They call me dear though I am dear
to no one, so I give them Sweetchild
in my voice though she died at
fourteen I can still move through her
mouth like cheesecloth, glistening
and fine. She must stay inside
somewhere, nestled in my throat
with her sisters. I hope they braid
each other’s hair. I hope they
never think of me.
Originally published by: Oddville Press fall 2018
This room made lovely by shadow
This room with bulbs that move above like passing streetlights, dark, but speckled in the city, home is drunk and watching you drive.
In this room, submerged in water is my body made of glass, near invisible, but you can see the scar like pursed lips from a sharp corner, it is found through touch.
In this room the sun cannot heal me. It is mild like a tepid-tonged ocean. Fathomless to meaningless as a bird call recedes in three parts sectioned like an echo.
In this room you can sit in a nest made of ice and blue glass. It glitters in the structured sunlight and melts to hold you tight ‘till the shards ease in to your thighs.
In this room I am sleeping. The ceiling fan clicks and the air conditioning clicks and the window blinds click against a window, all like thin things breaking.
In this room I haven’t bothered.
This room with two pleated cities making music with the seashore sound of passing cars.
In this room I have written your name repeatedly until it became one shape like a lose shadow of ash and then I switched to a different color.
This room, made lovely by shadows, is empty as intended.
In this room, with the drill pulse familiar, we are pinned in motion by strobing lights, can you see me laughing in green?
This room where we will never touch for the glass again between us, there is a flower held here in the sheer surface, pink without motion, to remind you.
In this room without memory we have a moment so I can apologize.
Originally published by: Mannequin Haus summer 2018
Retained
He lives in her mirror, per their agreement, and watches her. She is not performative, neither of them wanted that, but she is beautiful and thus easy to watch. He watches her braid her hair, her round chin angled down, and looks to see if she is frowning slightly, if she is tired. He watches her floss, infrequently, and watches her examine her blemishes from a short distance away. He enjoys this because, when she is near him, her breath dews the mirror. When she is gone for long hours of the day, he does not need to watch anything, but when she is home, in a T-shirt maybe, listening to music, often, perhaps sweeping in a way that is almost a slow dance and humming to herself, it is important that she is watched. She forgets sometimes, and then remembers, and she will smile at him because, she knows, he is there. He watches her remember, and he watches her forget. Every moment retained.
Originally published by: Mannequin Haus summer 2018
Things that I have sacrificed to give you body
Money: a sum of no interest.
A collection of iridescent birds who sing like rusted swing sets.
A parking lot on Sunday where church bells pool like a slow-moving mist.
An apartment with six potted plants, blue-grey walls, this place that grew to smell of garlic, leeks, wine.
Sunlight and sex, both so blinding that I leave myself.
Men who felt ready to love me, in parts.
A bruise, plum-shape and color.
A slew of road-side peach stands dappled in both real and fronted love of country.
The phantom of you in a hall mirror with a face that I could shape with needs my own.
Originally published by: Mannequin Haus summer 2018
One day, her hands became birds
and he could not forgive her.
They ate sunflower seeds, and
dipped themselves in fountains.
Her hands slept in trees,
folding gently on themselves.
He missed the way they’d
weighed his chest like stones,
keeping him still as he dreamed.
He hated holding them now,
in his hands, their little hearts
beating.
Originally published by: North of Oxford spring 2018
Please
Their time at sea became its’ own
reality. The salt and musk that sunk
into their hair, their clothes, the way
their bodies learned to lean, bracing
in their sleep. Their mother who
carved her wrists into flowers, and
the way her body twitched as she
was eaten by silver fish beneath
her like a bed of ribbons. The girl
with tiny fists clenched like heads
of garlic, who worked her mouth
and did not speak to anyone except
the word “please.”
Originally published by: Cease, Cows fall 2017
The room feels awkward
without inhabitants,
the cabinets unsure
how tall they should be,
if their drawers should open
easily, or not. The mirrors
don’t know how often
they should smile
Originally published by: Southern Poetry Review summer 2017
Film
I wear my anger for you
when it suits me,
when it is seasonally appropriate,
sometimes, when it rains.
I take no souvenirs.
I leave bobby pins in your bed,
hungover footsteps,
trailing down your stairs.
In the kitchen, without my love
you make coffee. You make
silent pillars of steam
to ease our morning.
I braid my hair to wait,
To practice living.
Originally published by: Songs of Eretz Poetry Review summer 2017
Left, and the sound of birds
He has never had
any of the women he filled.
Where they go
they go completely.
-
The wooden blinds
the silent room
light taken by a cloud.
Originally published by: Ink in Thirds summer 2016
Tiny mother
Her hair is knotted like
low Texas trees
bristled and burred.
She watches
her beautiful, empty child
with automatic legs
spilling and wheeling
the way rain makes a view new.
Originally published by: Ink in Thirds summer 2016
Wild god
On bad nights, he approaches her like you would a wild dog. He lays
hands on her, mapping out her waist, her thighs, her neck until she is
home in her body.
Still, there is something about the thrill of it. Her opening up, empty
beneath him. He can fall into her without purchase, finding new places,
pinching holes in her. He becomes creator...the Wild God. he wakes up
with someone folded, with a new light before he realizes.
Originally published by: Ink in Thirds summer 2016
Red velvet
The morning air is gentle
ceding her space
as her heels sink
into the wet grass.
She slips small holes
into its skin, still waking.
She smiles at the feeling,
as it gives.
Originally published by: Oddville Press summer 2016
When a night is named
This is how I will keep you,
wrapped in Christmas lights.
Above me, you shiver like kite skin.
My young body is vanity
I thought I could be a home for anyone
But you, like light, are swelling
in a place I can't touch,
you are rolling like the shadow
of a cloud.
We are both, so completely
lost to me.
Originally published by: JONAH Magazine summer 2016
Speartooth
I know your skin,
the bitten place behind
your knee. I know
from being peeled,
from being cleaned
in your small room,
molding like pleated skirts,
a place I can fall to
when I need to be anyone.
Originally published by: JONAH Magazine summer 2016
Taillights are temples in the ground
The plastic bag fills with rain
like a body.
the plastic bag like the latex glove.
The rain is too gentle for her.
The wheel pulls.
On the side of the road,
a red bumper smiles
cut from a jack-o'-lantern.
The semis send up waves
like whales.
Whale whale whale
whale.
Originally published by: LAROLA summer 2016
Comedown
The air is stillborn
After the storm, it sticks
to skin. As I walk
the shadows of birds cross
between my feet like
sharks through milk.
Originally published by: LAROLA summer 2016
Fingers through the trees
When seized, do not speak.
The sun strips you to what she knows,
and she knows heat.
Originally published by: LAROLA summer 2016
You breathe out
Your body teaches you death today,
slowly, there is no enchantment
in your limbs, only pull.
And outside,
the heat you've lived with
your whole life, the kind
that's thick, still
like an ocean, kicks
at your windows.
Originally published by: LAROLA summer 2016
White Fence Gang - Intrubide
If I can be here, I can be nowhere.
We play with our new toys, and I
love these girls, but I know
this is the same game as wives
who create a baby to feel full.
We can spit fire like fire was made for us,
we can move so smooth it is cruel
to watch our legs closing like
Chinese fans, but in the end,
there are only two gods. You see,
I had a revelation. Last night, in bed
he was power and I was love, and he
was hungry for me.
Originally published by: The Blue Hour spring 2015
I rise with my red hair
I have become woman
with many names. Many
of those gifts. From you,
I am victim, I am survivor
I am rise. The number of times
I have been angry,
could be counted in two cupped palms
The number of times I have bitten,
tremble.
Originally published by: The Blue Hour spring 2015
The wooden floor
From the right angle, you can see
her footprints on the mopped floor
like language, or the shadow of eggs.
You think about tracing her steps,
her slow, small dance, but
the thought turns.
It is not your time,
your faith.
Originally published by: The Blue Hour spring 2015
Hamsa
The towel is wet and warm.
I place it on my face and feel
my skin shift like old wood.
Like a prayer, I name
all the things I did not ask for.
Originally published by: The Missing Slate spring 2015