My Too-Big Dog
You are too big for my apartment. Too big for my life. That was what people told me anyway. People say that I should just get a small dog, like a yorkie, maybe a frenchie. But nothing too big. Nothing that requires too much. Nothing like you: a 65lb Doberman pinscher who could pull a sled and obstinately eat off the… Read more →
Ozoning
Power
I’ll tell you the best Bible story. My version is Best but you can check the original if you want. So Jesus is getting pretty big at this point; he’s really blowing up. Folks are following him and he’s marching on, disciples are striding and streaking next to him; you know Jesus always rides twelve people deep. This woman sees… Read more →
driving lessons
I preach labor exploitation in the name of Christto my mom as I tell her about the youth group service trip I just finishedand she says, try being a stay at home motheras I sit next to herlike an uncashed check. I’m driving through smokefrom fires three time zones away and,if a tree falls in the forest and you find… Read more →
My Sister Says There Are Parts I’m Not Remembering
In the nonhuman future, particles of plastic pulverized by the North Pacific Garbage Gyre work their way through scales of fish. Stars flare through their life cycles without faces. How badly I want them to have faces. My tombstone could be a horse’s heart as it beats, quilt of blood, swift to the furthest reaches, warming the nostrils, the tender… Read more →
Before
Yellow leaves clung to the branches of bony trees. In the back of the police cruiser, my wrists werered from handcuffs. Raw red like roses, strawberries. The cops found me hanging upside downfrom the apartment building’s balcony by my ankles, caught in the railing. Had to use the cherrypicker to get me down. I was naked, warm. They made me… Read more →
No, where are you really from?
Sisimulan ko sa simula. Foremother trudges through Guimaras grasslands, gathers mangoes in a pina leaf basket woven tight as DNA strands. All day, she will carry orbs of gold light under her arm. On Long Island, I carry an eighth of weed in the pocket of my father’s Mets jersey, but the air still smells of salt. Picture the aswang… Read more →
What we’re leaving behind (map)
dry lakebed & hot wind where music used to live dry lakebed & hot wind where bees used to dry lakebed & hot wound where the moon dry lakebed & no forest all dust dry lakebed & weed-cracked highways dry lakebed & what passed for love dry lakebed & empty dry lakebed & whatever follows regret in the dictionary dry… Read more →
For Someone Who Listens
The end comes many times, always in different disguises: effervescent plumes of sarcasm, barely veiled accusations, buttoned-up rancor. You fear the void beyond the mask. Its hunger for your porous bones. Its loneliness, playing you like a flute. It howls and you do too, you don’t know better. What it takes to quiet it down. Which voice is truly mine…. Read more →