loud darkness waiting
for the party after
a friend’s wedding
and her people come
to the table I saved
for an hour however
they sit at another table
and an old man
I don’t know
sits at the one I am at
in so many ways this party
part and parcel
merely a box
I open for
connection
(originally published in Monterey Poetry Review, Summer 2020)
right now the animal sits on a paper leaf
bells in the other room
and a TV remote’s button-presses amplified thousandfold
sometimes heartbeats in the walls
tell me: is that faucet water or white noise machine
plastic bags on plastic bags on
you bring me a handful of cat toenails in your palm
(originally published in Marias & Sampaguitas, Summer 2021)
there is no wrong way to eat
a hot dog there is no right
to eat a dog there is no hot
dog hot popsicle of pig
meat slathered in existential
ketchup bread-claustrophobic
*
once on a drive home from Central Catholic
I stopped at the Dairy Queen Drive-Thru
and asked for hot dog wrapped in lettuce
I was more hypochondriac at sixteen
than at thirty-two anyway the kid
at the window said they couldn’t
but I insisted and the manager
smuggled the long sizzling dog in wet
lettuce I carry that shame in the trash
bag of my trunk to this day
*
pig meat
pig meat
in a sleeping bag of green
*
there is no way to eat a dog
there are ways to eat a hot dog
I am a bog I am the bog I am
breakfast lunch dinner brunch midnight snack
everlasting bun communion holy
water life I down through days and lick my fingers
after rough vigorous handwashing
I’ve opened plastic package
set skillet to flame
lain logs on drizzled oil
*
the celebrity chef in my mind
is me I documented cooking when I lived
in my car. That was my true potential. Oh, swine,
you’re years beyond capable
yet I drove halfway across the country
to do what competitors do, which is down
hundreds of you. Joey Chestnut the undisputed
master after decades of dogs.
*
Went to a dollar dog minor
league game twenty cents per dog flies
buzzing in orbit of condiments
five the limit at the window so all
could see I had the buns. One each for
STRENGTH. ACCEPTANCE.
CONFIDENCE. GRACE.
AMBITION.
*
One inning was all
it took and I was alone in my new
city full of my father’s love
of baseball and barbecues. Now
there was an undisputed grill master.
Everyone knows one. I am not one.
There is no way to cook.
There is a way.
Wayne was over and we flicked
lit matches with our middle fingers
from thumbs into ready
charcoal to get the grill going.
We walked away and waited for
an action-movie explosion
but there was no ignition.
*
My whole life I have been walking
away, not turning back to look.
(originally published in HAD, Summer 2022)
Doesn’t matter how much dark red
wine you drink, the clock always
ticks westward to the setting sun,
the city lights flickering on when
lips are dry and winter recesses
so blackbirds can meander across
the morning’s bluegray sky then
perch along powerlines to watch
as you walk to your car this warm
January morning, beads for eyes
everywhere
(originally published in The Academy of the Heart and Mind, Fall 2020)
all night
single cell
call vibration
wrapped
under sheet
with me
nightlong
my mouth
voiceless
seasick sleep
that follows
me into
dreams
I drink Coke
with pizza
the bed
swallows me
but I’d eat
the bed
if I could
(originally published in Fleas on the Dog, Fall 2020)
just a little simple contact
inconsequential fist bump
against the knuckle of
your silver bling fingers
the rain has ceased
underneath this bridge
and you polish your new
tattoo of blue butterfly wings
you say the ink is peeling off
and I get it how something
beautiful can quickly turn
into blears of dark how long
it took to learn you to get
the rhythm of you we have
been cruising through the
busy streets of Pittsburgh
in constant contact swerving
to avoid listless walkers
and even that I understand
how I wander through the
world underneath the cig
smoke sky not caring that
the secondhand will kill
me when I choose to inhale
(originally published in Fleas on the Dog, Spring 2020)
I don’t know you
but I must have, once,
in some other life, the same
one this timeline is a part
of, this forward motion
a shadow of a shadow
darkening everything
I believe I know
has obscured.
(originally published in Plato’s Caves Online, Summer 2020)
Shades of Colorado, bleak
as winter sky packing gear
in the trunk before your
flight, reverberations of
song trapped in guitar
from the blinking purple
show at the grime dive.
I went to exhaust their
pierogi supply, to sit
in crowded silence
watching the people around
me, wondering why I came
here, the question resonating
along the ceiling, silent
as raindrops falling
from the bare rafters.
(originally published in The Dillydoun Review, Summer 2021)
Another rainy voting day– this time,
I crossed Main Street without looking.
I know traffic patterns enough
to know around noon there’s no one
out here, and so I walked into
the alley by Tina’s, the anti-social
route past people’s fenced backyards.
I met a hanging skeleton and
a wooden turkey two houses apart,
and when I walked downhill to
get to Woolsair a man in a Tahoe
pointed to the school’s side door.
In other years, there are people
lurking who want to tell me how
to vote, but this time, no signs,
nothing– just an empty gym, three
old men and my neighbor, Nolan,
who I didn’t know volunteered
here, told me there have been
just a few today, and thus as I
tapped my choices saying no
to oligarchical, corporate forces
as best I could, I temporarily
felt the weight of my fingers
multiply, that my choices would
count as thousandths not
millionths on the grand tv ticker
tonight– no. I know enough
to know that if it’s only me,
my vote will never matter.
(originally published in JONAH Magazine, Summer 2020)
month close to death. not quite. i mean
lingering. sword in my throat sharpens.
no blood just ideas. look somehow
i’ll make it through & you will too.
sun a fluorescent hospital interior
bland & tasteless. every song out
of tune piano room. cold blanket
can’t hide the notes dark &
hovering outside the window
(originally published in OVERHEARD Lit, Winter 2022)