poem(s): split

boy in his head she is a woman I knew, when I was younger. she starts and stops— like porn dissolving, reloading into a face like Iceland, two eyes, two fishes swimming into my mouth— reloading their shaking pupils. when you tip your neck, I would like to bite the wet skin. - - -…

poem: the view from my living room window

some people light small fires—I, am lit. someday i will be won and not waiting: it is an old refrain, told by older woman; in the still afternoon i watch three sparrows circle my childhood, the greens glowing yellow, and i think— there is something waiting out there, there is something roaring.

poem: stay-at-home woman

do you remember the red telephone, sitting like a silent cat, renovating the hall with its small plastic face? i watched you leave, the first day, and then i called my mother. the baby was twisting like an almond, a sliver in my ocean-split stomach; i put my hands over my mouth so she wouldn’t…

poem: the ancient man

his hands, holding me were like the ocean exploding in my mouth. and I brought the long fingers, the star-fish arms studded with sea spray and drowned crow gilt— i let them buzz me, the edges of things breaking against me like i was the world and he was the water.

poem: light yagami

he was a boy with stars in his eyes and the world laid out (carefully) at his feet. he walked too far, too fast. he missed the world and fell into the universe, into the cosmos. he came out— a god. he came out a scared boy with no better legacy than people dropping dead—…

poem: twisted

published also in one hand clapping magazine, in altered form if you put my face into wet cementit would not leavedefining marks. my shoes squeak lolita lolita lolita after i visit my father;walking across town makes towninto thin manga lines,the people slipping into hotpencil shapes and his thumbprintskeeping close watchon my ankles, on the young…

poem: boy alone, watching a girl

there are lilacs coming up under her skirt— and she stands in shadow on the concrete, fat clouds making dreams behind her. i watch her and imagine: maybe my fingers are touching the raw strands of hair coming loose around her small face, instead of the sun. maybe if we breathed at closer times the…

poem: the pandemic is us

she is waiting at an inner-city line the bus pulls up blood-red, it is weeping corpses the bodies are old personas, old dissected diagrams of the same girl: she is ambition, desperation, romanticism. but now— she is washing and washing her hands trying not to be something she is not, trying to find the small…

poem: maniac pixie dream girl

when I was younger I wanted to be the personification of some artist's inner life— i would be the girl with the mask tacked on backwards, the girl over-thinking her image— i would be youth, hope, the red blushes in forests, the red blushes when boys lean in close and say things from books—like this…

poem: happiness

I know good things take time—but I wish we were already at the part where he is texting me 'goodnight' and I am waking up with his breath on my back— that we already owned the studio apartment, the kitchen window looking out on cafés and city alleys, the baby in the living room and…