"Rosaline Speaks"

I hardly think of him these days, except
when asked, or blamed he fell. the looks that say
“if only you had not rejected him.”
should I have shed my maidenhead for naught—
ope my lap, my heart, to golden showers
for fourteen measures of his ill-phrased lines?
and now I’m clept as chaste, as frigid? bound
for a nunnery? I play hard to get,
expect his chase— with love as strong as death—
to last beyond one song, and he exchanged
my cousin’s rose for mine? fuck that whiny,
inconsistent little bitch, and his three-
day bride! I was too fair, too wise by far,
and ‘scaped the passing fancy I thought love.

A sonnet first published in Teach. Write (Spring, 2019). And seriously, Romeo was a punk.

“Kenosis”

kenosis

. . . Because God
is not a flash of diamond light. God is
the kicked child, the child
who rocks alone in the basement
     ~ Ellen Bass “Bearing Witness”

 after reading Roethke’s Waltz
the tension in my class was tangible
: to cast papa as a drunk (dealing abuse
with timed fists), or just a regular joe
dancing his darling to bed,
lightened by an after work beer

but as these immortals debated design
and argued image to metaphor
Katrine’s stillness split my heart;

later she explained her stepfather’s demand
of a demon’s dowry: how she nightly endured
his endless gropes and gasps, in a silence
which left her sister untouched, and a knife
untucked from his thrusting back.

A Pushcart prize nominated poem first published in Relief (2007); republished in Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression - The Best Of Volume 1.

“comfort”

comfort

a bed knows it is beloved by the impression felt,
indents left by sound sleep. faithful feathers and coils
hugged by unconscious curves night after night—
trust embodied in the repose of one lain down,
pillowed-sighs contented in peace. there are no flowers
or candy. no quotes or cute comments. no song or speech
save the Sandman’s lullaby, or the last to say “good night.”
after hours of waiting, a bed knows it is beloved
when it feels gravity within its silent, regal arms—
the moment to love and just be loved in return.

• First published in Routine, a Crack the Spine Press Anthology (2018)

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"Amir and Sybil"

Amir and Sybil

a found poem for Dorothy

sit down. I’ve been sifting through your past lives.
date nights, karaoke competitions, Seinfeld marathons.
the mahogany rows turned to watch your white dress meet
your tan suit. then the smell of dirt and Play-Doh. sand between
our small toes. three collections of first steps, school days,
and sex talks for fifteen naive years. I now see the signs,
the sigils. the eyes, which once whispered pretty secrets,
gone blank before the list of things you both dare not mention,
until every room reeks with the tension of a house whose bones
shake with your silence. the angst that kept me in bed
for three days straight. I bare the weight of seeing things
exactly as they are, like an awful haircut, a racist joke,
or the lady who spit on us in the Ross parking lot
when I was eleven— our contrasting colors not matching
her vision of family. I hear the disguised insults shattering glass
at our dinner table. the sobbing at 12 AM. the footsteps returning
to your bedroom at sunrise when you think I’m asleep. I know
how dark hands once gripped the steering wheel white.
the red wine. the empty pill bottle. the piece of paper binding you
to a house whose dumbwaiter never made it past the first floor.
a house that forgot how much she loves you, the way he still looks at you.
maybe you’re both caught in the monotonous cycle of mid-life,
one sock stuck sipping expensive bourbon with pretentious friends—
without the woman you fought to swoon with two-buck chuck—,
the other lost in the arms of a trainer who stretches your insecurity,
making disgust a reflex for the man you promised the world.
you never hold the door. you never share the umbrella.
you never take her out, or ask how he is. you never touch anymore.
you never notice. part of me still believes that sometimes people grow
in opposite directions. sometimes the people who locked eyes
across a snowy shoreline can occupy the empty house on the hill
20 years later. sometimes stolen glances become bloodshot.
perhaps mahogany isn’t meant for everyone.

• A version is published in 3Elements Review Issue 23 (2019)  

“sindication”

sindication

Say Hell’s a rerun of Miami Vice
where a D-list celebrity supplies
a lackluster voiceover…

• This poem was selected from entries submitted to Typishly’s Creative Challenge Series #53.

“aphagia”

Women in Black, by Marianne von Werefkin (Russia) 1910.

the sin eaters have turned their backs on us,
departed for their flaming mountain home
to purge. they’ve retrieved their wooden bowls
and plates. in white sacks gathered the salt and crumbs
of corpse-bread— loaves that sopped our lusts and lies,
the myriad murders our hearts desired— then
retreated from our boarders, forsaking us.
no longer can they stomach what they’ve witnessed
across the great river, beyond the walls we’ve built.
the weakest pitied the glut of guilt denied
when we pass. a shame, she says. a waste.

• Originally published as a part of The Ekphrastic Review’s Ekphrastic Writing Challenge.