MOTHER
“I have lived / spread across the bathroom tile / for decades watching the wrinkles beneath / your frown / sink deeper into your skin”
Linger
“Even though / I do not miss you / You still linger / In places / Where you are / Not welcome”
Cooking Lessons with Sinatra
“I pop open a browser with the intention / of a fuzzy serenade but / suddenly I’m allergic to jazz chords / alone in a room my eyes will / water? / (spill over)”
THERE IS A BOY
“In the bathroom there is a boy / showering in basketball shorts / with a [sock stuffed sock] between his legs”
Self Neglect is Not a Virtue
“But self neglect is not a virtue / I am not a sin-eater / I am not a therapist / I am not a priest”
Next in Line?
“but in that time I would have to stand / to the side / in the center of the — / crowded places bring on a sickness / surrounded by disorderly / strangers who are all after some version”
A Garden in the Mirror
“frail and fighting with the flavor / of metal stinging the air / creeping towards varnished sun / lighter than vanity”
FROM MY EYES
“My ears full of Springsteen hope / I reach for an empty glass bottle / What to do, throw it out the closed window / Frigid wind roaring, foot on the throttle”
a brief lunar curiosity
“for all that is known, maybe / the moon / in all her glory / is merely guiding a child home”
meditation on night
“adri worked her way / through a cheap pack of cigarettes with one / melting out the spout of her mouth gritted in / her teeth like / the bitten straw of a child”
Iowa, Arizona
“I guess I have another home, / Someplace I've never been. / I'm listed on a tribal roll / And get postcards from the rez.”
Light
“She is light. / She is the glimmer of the desolate stars amongst a polluted sky / The faint glow of fireflies as the sun is setting / A flickering streetlight on an empty road / The blaze of the midnight sun”
UNFULFILLED
“It all disappears but I’m still staring / at an empty bed and a broken door / a broken shower, crying on its floor”
In Honor of Negative Space
“Today newscasters declared that most places / have been lost to the core of the earth and most / floors have now disintegrated into the finer points”
at the door
“you asked if you could see my house sometime / you liked what you saw through the window / the pictures on the wall arranged just so”
Ask
“All that is there is / a broken subtle punch / from the inflictions of all the trauma you’ve been throwing up”
Run Through
“seven year echo around the hallway / of the decorations, stains of your brain”
Self Love is Easy
“Know your power. You, / digital numbers ticking / under cracked toenail polish”
words from my shadow
“i think i may have ignored / the early whispers during our silence / the ticks of the second hand inching us towards the door”
Border Fence
“lifeless soil, a place / for prayer, coating his safe, holy feet / blistering heat assimilates / with psalms and prayers, too silent”