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Selected Publications
“It” was first published in Ploughshares. Click logo to view issue.
It
It will not wait for eggs to hatch, or fruit to ripen. Won’t wait
for your coffee to cool, bread to rise, or garden to produce.
It won’t wait for your grasp to be firmer, or your loneliness
to leave you. Won’t wait for you to make friends, or friends to make you.
It will not wait for you to understand, or for your temper
to temper. Won’t wait for forgiveness, or your epiphany
on its divinity. It won’t wait for you to park the car
or land the plane. To turn off the stove, iron, faucet, or fan.
It will not wait for your child to grow up, or your dog to heal.
Won’t wait for you to untangle wants from needs, or yesterday
from today. For you to find the words. For your treatments to end
or begin. Won’t wait for I love you, or I should tell you, or
Let’s fuck. It won’t wait for you to run, hide, fight, fly, freeze—or fuck.
For your fever to break, cough to ease, or knee to bend again.
It won’t wait for your Please, your One more, or your I’m not ready.
For your thoughts, your prayers, or God’s answers. For you to say or do
anything without Its permission. It will come when It comes
and you will be there when It does. It will not weigh or judge you
as you are then. It will find you as intended, exactly
on your mark, ready or not, as It arrives to lift the veil.
“on dating” was first published in The American Poetry Review. Click logo for link.
on dating
i want mutual suspicion. an agreed upon distaste
for optimism. for goals.
when we meet, i want a handshake.
a smile, real & gentle, but wary. a shrewd eye
to eye. if a glint, so be it. but i'm neither asking
nor gifting.
i gave the last of my polite laughs
relationships ago. i like cats
for their earned intimacy, their requisite
listening. the respect in learning
their themness without presumption. or else
the claws, the teeth
when all along, buried under patience: the purr.
the nuzzle. the tender kneading.
“Amends” was first published in Kenyon Review. Click logo for link.
Amends
I’m sorry is an aversion
of the eyes, a politician’s slant
acknowledgment (and somehow not)
of the facts—as perhaps they might be
seen from a certain angle—; and yet
it’s the tool we use
in polite company, since few are those
who deserve or sign up for
the brutality of reality
viewed in the nude: its wrinkles
and blemishes, so unsettlingly
familiar.
“You, an Apocalypse Survivor, Lie in the Grass to Watch a Comet” was first published in Palette Poetry. Click logo for link.
You, an Apocalypse Survivor, Lie in the Grass to Watch a Comet
The last time your optic nerve received this,
the induced glow of this passing object,
your lips newly reborn by their first kiss,
was the very night you woke the prospect
of sharing your body with another.
Your body—older too now, bearing scars
and consolations—regards its lover’s
with love and understanding from afar,
as it does all the others now through time.
Two traversals of a dark, vacant rock.
How many years since you’ve been touched; eight? Nine?
Since your skin felt skin uncontrolled, with shock.
But for comets, there are no surprise turns—
only birth, arc, spectacle, and return.
“The Apocalypse Survivor’s Aubade” was first published in MumberMag. Click logo for link.
The Apocalypse Survivor’s Aubade
I know you’re out there, lost in your pillows
of ash and grief, to rise only to mourn
yesterday, today, and all tomorrows,
wrapped alone in strange strangling sheets, worn
as little shrouds after the little death
of another sunset celebration.
Each night a worship of pink delights, breath
held captive in our private elation
we spin and tumble alone through the dark,
a binary act, a two-body team
you the star, and I chasing in your arc,
your satellite, your codependent dream.
Yet each night, I slip away in the black.
Forgive me, my light; you always come back.
These three “Apocalypse Survivor” sonnets were first published in Columbia Poetry Review. RIP CPR.
Three “Apocalypse Survivor” Sonnets
The Apocalypse Survivor Recalls Having Forgotten to Be Himself and a Husband During a Prolonged Bout of Anxiety About Shit That Ultimately Didn’t Even Matter
Despite years of end-time pains, it still hurts:
it's our world that withered & died, not the.
He thinks of fish unfed, houseplants in thirst,
endearments ignored: noticed in crises
only by symptom of death—long, sudden.
He tells past-self, in past-life, in dead-world:
Yours is the only rain in love’s garden,
but no timelines change, no alt-verse unfurls.
Bed still empty come end of all seasons,
survival bloomed a welcome distraction.
But all fades rote with time; the mind treasons,
slipping thoughts into the cracks of action.
Even now, with then. Even pain, with more.
Each memory a frame; each choice a door.
The Apocalypse Survivor Masturbates
A thorough beating, he never knew love
or tenderness with self, just begrudging
perfunctory maintenance, the care of
a soft machine. Why start now the trudging?
He used to love making love: it mattered,
had stakes, justified pleasure as a gift
to give to another machine, battered
by world, beaten by self, in need of lift.
Wrapping a tattered rag around his stick,
his machine a drowsy emperor’s toy,
he gives nothing, takes all; punishing, sick.
The world’s end doesn’t unmake the world’s boy.
But somewhere inside, he is not alone.
Somewhere inside, tears fall from eyes of stone.
The Apocalypse Survivor Burns Yet Another House to the Ground
He strikes again, starving for reprimand
or scorn, or anything from anyone
in this last age. Beyond consequence and
lit up by the light of his own dark sun
he breaks this night, cracks in the smoky dawn
of his burning bodhi tree, as he sees
the illusion that his whole world hangs on:
that it does, did, will ever really be
a thing of consequence. If burned abodes
are only seen by burners, aren’t missed
by builders, banks, or owners, then what bodes
for the last man, clenched in a dead world’s fist?
Laughter—the very last of it—echoes,
tears clearing ash, steaming as the light grows.
“Cereology” was first published in The American Journal of Poetry. RIP AJP.
Cereology
(n.) the investigation of, or practice of creating, crop circles
Meaningful hoaxes are not
exceptions. Excuses aside,
lay enough of anything
in parallel, and God emerges
for someone. The wonder
of miracle makers isn't
how they’ve any left at all;
walk enough in circles
and lose your trail, only to find
a path. Sink down slowly enough
and you’re on your knees
before you know it—one moment
a cynic doubting doubts, the next,
a swaying stalk awaiting the fold.