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Poetry
Hymn
We exist on the cusp of light and ruin. / Some nights I pray for time // to fold into itself, then spit us out / small and smooth like tumbled rocks, // alloys of past and present.
January 2025
Cows in the Parking Lot of the Emergency Dentist
The day I waded out of the lake with a stand-up / paddleboard and a split tooth was four days after I knew / I would leave you and eight days before I told you / I knew.
January 2025Right Guard
As he aged, my father dwindled, / not in stature—though he grew smaller, / as elders must—but rather in estate. / He never required much, // insisted on giving things away. / What am I going to do with all this?
December 2024Making Luxury Out of Flat Soda
I learned to breathe in my grandmother’s kitchen / despite life sitting on my chest. / Scent of cast-iron skillet seasoned by sunrises / and ancestors’ touch. Gospels of sizzling grease / and bubbling greens my uncle called hallelujah and amen.
December 2024
Guarding the Coop
I watch for the fox that’s slaughtered / three Rhode Island Reds, the hens / just lumps of bloodied feathers I buried / before my son and daughter woke this morning.
December 2024
This Call Is from an Inmate at a Federal Prison
They say you eventually get desperate / enough to call a stranger, someone / who’s added her number to a database / for the incarcerated, someone who’s / even more alone than you.
November 2024Driving Upstate with My Father
Driving upstate with my father / at the end of a bad year. Trees begin / to outnumber houses. Rain turns to snow / as fields hang like paintings. / Dad fills his lip with chew, talks.
November 2024
Bring Me a Horse
Instead of bending spoons with our thoughts, we broke / popsicle sticks with our fists. We didn’t have beards yet, / so we slathered our faces in mayo and shaved / with butter knives. This was called tasting the world / with our skin, and this was called happiness times ten.
October 2024Grandpa’s Gavel
I take it into my hand, and / it’s now 1959 and I’m in the room: NAACP gathered, / Grandpa pounding the sounding block to call / order—here, big decisions get made; here, activism // happens, ingrained into mallet and memory
October 2024The Dream
In the small, trembling room of my longing, A., / Last night—summer wearing the walls, autumn / Spread in orange colors on the floor, upon which / We lay, two quiet pianos, soul music pouring / Over the hidden grass—we touched, my face to the mirror of yours.
September 2024
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