Selected Poems, 2016 – 2019
90
(10/24/2019)
Do you remember when we couldn’t sleep?
So we got up and got dressed and went out
into the city of others and lights,
and I took the C and you took the 7,
and we hadn’t been talking and had no
plan or prearranged place to rendezvous
but we met in Times Square, amidst the ghosts
of suicides, who carried shopping bags
with their lives in them. And in the station,
we got the A train and had a knife fight,
and rolled around in one of those new cars
with saucy gyro wrappers on the floor—
and we cut ourselves to shreds, and bled out,
and I forgot you, and you forgot me.
- Originally published in Smartish Pace
- Published in Lit Magazine issue 33
89
(02/14/2018)
She says she thought about me this AM.
That would have been right when I was thinking
about how sick I am of this project.
How maybe all I need is a helper
to light it on fire, “the perfect plan.”
Every computer, every location,
every page, every last person;
every article and accoutrement
of history, character, or attire:
burn it all. Every single thing gets wicked.
Each one of these thousand sources. Spare nix.
And burn the witnesses, and the witnesses
to the witnesses, greasy as lambs—
so the fire spits and zings in innocence.
/
- Published in Big Other
88(Mi Mea)
(11/05/2017)
I kept a lock of her hair, which I used
to stuff the head of a doll I repaired,
which is here on my desk to pierce with pins
because aren’t we friends? We’ll always be
friends, friends to the end, hidey hidey ho,
my friend, sweet friend, who has no darts for me,
my friend, sweet friend, who won’t hold up the phone,
so I can hear her breathe, mentiroso,
and exist in her follicles and spit,
and be there just ahead in her next chair,
in a waiting thought, ripened by a bruise.
Por favor, un momento con mi amor,
si, mi amor, mea memento mori.
87
(11/05/2017)
When she was a girl, and I was a boy,
the trees had no kind, the doors had no #s,
and the wind did not carry the clatter
of bones, weathered and hollow, and once words.
Animals had our eyes, our short-life eyes,
and we knew the way to go in the sand—
and daylight was squeezed from lemons & limes—
and little lies were prey to little birds.
I lived within a prayer, when I was with her.
And now we have North, she and I have North,
and to mourn, a week with the linden trees.
And whenever she & I are children,
we’re children without tongues, and without hands.
86
(10/26/2017)
I was just minding my own business,
just sitting around, all by myself,
waiting for something shitty to happen,
when you showed up again, waving, waving
your long arm and buttered toast fingertips,
and asking if I miss you, which I do,
which I do, which I do, which I do,
and then you left, again, teeth without lips.
Come over here, my doe-eyed once darling,
and kiss me when you do that. Kiss me when
you kick the bread crumbs and the pigeons laugh,
when you toss out your hands and make the sun.
You, I do. Under your sky, I do.
/
- Published in Big Other
85 (Spell)
(10/17/2017)
If sorrow had no lover, the petals
of roses woud sing, and night would not heal
the wound, and we would not blink our eyes, still,
still, and breathe these ashes, these ashes, through
our teeth. We would not melt the snow with our
dreams, and water would not be wine with no
color and no flavor, and the laughter of children,
the other children, would not pierce the window,
would not draw us so near the horizon.
/
If sorrow has no lover, who will pour,
and who will light the cigarette? And will
there be no ivory blade to cut the seal?
To read aloud the jinx? “I cast the spell.”
Road Kill (84)
(10/02/2016)
But the birds have no graves, my love, once love,
and there is heaven there, where they reside—
where these feathers are still green, red, still gold.
Is it heaven, darling, heaven, where we’ve gone?
Heaven darling, I do I do I do,
if we are ahead, anyway, I do.
If, my darling—but don’t write back—I do.
Darling, light no fires, these wings still luff.
But who? Who then, darling, if we are not?
But who then darling, who, would still have eyes?
But who then darling, who, will name the roads?
Who then, darling, will shiver with the doves?
Dearest, darling, my once love, and who will rove?
- Originally published in Lit Magazine issue 33
83
(09/23/2016)
I understand you’re thankful for my help,
that you appreciate all my advice,
which you’ve always questioned and ignored,
always the same, because you know better.
Once in a while, I was saying to you,
someone volunteers the information
that, as much as they’re entitled from you,
you shouldn’t expect reciprocation,
and since you do have something to offer,
you will be regularly reminded
to acknowledge your secondary place.
I’d just told you that, when you dropped your pearl.
So, no thanks on the forty minute call.
82
(09/27/2016)
Twenty years, knock knock, and I’m without strings,
while you, too, rattle your knobs down hallways.
If hawseholes still linger, I don’t look for them.
I don’t wonder, darling, about the hand,
which waits, without a palm, without an other—
no valence of clouds or eyes in the blue—
mantled above what we can remember,
above the dead side and our varnished pupils.
But what if, what-if we, our cords untangled,
quivered by our fetters, ensnared again?
And the footlights kindled our wooden faces,
and we tossed embraces to jointed limbs,
suspended, while we clattered painted lips.
/
- Originally published in How Journal
Seven Blessings
(09/04/2016)
Let’s go somewhere, maybe take a taxi
to where the field meets the orchard in vines,
and we’ll try to find where the blackberries,
who have no winter, cast blessings,
and the sky rides the locomotive,
whistling to you, whistling while the birds hush.
Come, and we’ll steal the beekeeper’s hive,
which hadn’t he always intended for us?
Fruit crate hives in elevator buildings,
where the window glass is rolled of honey,
where we will tablecloth the linseed sun,
and pull out the benches and shed our keys,
and share equally between us one sky, once seen.
- Originally published by Otter Magazine
#1
(I Am An American)
(02/04/2016)
The June cement shouldered the sky.
I am an American. A.
The fireworks come in July.
/
Wooden spoons and lemon sorbet.
I am an American. M.
The sun won’t blind you on flag day.
/
Our voices beat the chainlink fence.
I am an American. E.
Spider egg gum, twenty-five cents.
/
M101, M103.
I am an American. R.
Take the A/C/E to Chambers Street.
/
I drew my name with yours, in tar.
I am an American. I.
Barney worked the tap at his mom’s bar.
/
Some of these kids already survived.
I am an American. C.
The ones I won’t keep, will kiss my eyes.
/
Summer ends in the Linden trees.
I am an American. A.
We will be one child, laid in the grave.
/
Wooden spoons and lemon sorbet.
I am an American. N.
The sun won’t blind you on flag day.
/
And horse-drawn will you go your way.
/
We will be one child, laid in the grave.
I am an American. I.
William, Morgan, Sarah and Jane.
/
From now to then, only our names.
/
The June cement shouldered the sky.
I am an American. A.
The pilings called roll at low tide.
/
Even here, we all smelled like hay.
I am an American. M.
Forget me no more, child’s play.
/
And horse-drawn will you go your way.
/
Spider egg gum, twenty-five cents.
I am an American. A.
The sidewalks glint of fools gold, spent.
/
They come to the city for trouble, don’t they?
I am an American. N.
But if we’re born to sin, it’s heaven’s shame.
/
The sun won’t blind you on flag day.
/
The boys will fight, but still will cry.
I am an American. A.
Some of these kids already survived.
/
The children give what God will take.
I am an American. M.
We walk behind Ms. Has No face.
/
Our voices beat the chainlink fence.
I am an American. E.
We fill the auditorium.
/
Take the A/C/E to Chambers Street.
I am an American. R.
We’re hugged by rain and wooden seats.
/
I drew my name with yours, in tar.
I am an American. I.
Barney worked the tap at his mom’s bar.
/
The fireworks come in July.
I am an American. C.
The ones I won’t keep, will kiss my eyes.
/
Summer ends in the Linden trees.
I am an American. A.
M101, M103.
/
Yellow brick tiles, matte green paint.
I am an American. N.
Hand in hand, our heads of whey.
/
We will be one child, laid in the grave.
/
- originally published in Shuf Poetry
- Forthcoming in the Poetry is Bread Anthology
- Used in the award-winning short film “I Am An American”