what if i kill the stars first
when a medical document asks my marital status
i write, trying not to get my hopes up about sunlight
that’s what it feels like even in the fuck me state
some bleach-white beach in florida where i lived
on bourbon with a co-conspirator after the abortion
pale as uncooked pasta promising i’m typically
a more patient trainwreck but when it comes to
manned space travel you’re a wormhole to andromeda
and i’m a kindergartener who skipped swimming lessons
mussed mascara mentioning your wife to my therapist
wishful thinking is what they call it when an anemone
clenches shut around the wrong fishhook
and yes, i’m beginning to resent it, the east coast
incandescent smirk at every turn of my time-hop
toward what the ocean misses most: the skid
mark of still believing in devils just for the
single cell of it, headlights pointed past the
capsize, pretending that smell isn’t smoke
bashed / unabashed
last night’s dive bar patio
spotting some bro eye-
dropping tincture into
an abandoned beer
and you’re all, put a treat
in my bag, bloody guy
flashback to toddler’s
first cognizant halloween
that’s what you actually said
shirley temple ringlets
bouncing for a neighbor
with a cleaver thru his head
risk-take settings only
ever stay in bed or
summon demons
stories your mother
loves to tell-so seldom
so you let her, sipping
soda water wishing it
were something stronger
there is a modicum of
comfort, though, in knowing
you were always someone
supposedly worth quoting
like, look, a little vulgar
monkey, terrified eternally
until exactly when it should be
and here we thought
there was a chain link missing
when it was right here all along
nooner neruda
you tell me over lunch hour
coffee you want to do to me
what spring does to the cherry
trees and i’m immediately like
check, please, not as in rejection
but rather hurry, we have only 20
minutes to make spring happen
brutal blooming the way the
statues can only pretend to
alabaster hammer unentered
come find me undulating
under a park bench
there is no sense waiting
on a groundhog shadow, is there?
little marvel, a motel room
might as well a mausoleum
when the season is this brief
before that summer stench
of cafe trash, everything
that doesn’t keep
- Three Poems - November 24, 2020