Palimpsest, Urban
Sidewalk sprouted more candles bouquets foil heart balloons, swallowed a child whole into its undercarriage. Its breath copper alchemy and lead, ruptured promises, knee’s leaps over cracked back superstitions. On a corner you can app map a reroute real simple. Bend wheels round less troubled avenues. Ancient streets bear the same names as new paved ones. New paved ones leave… Read more →
Our Daughters Are Bedbugs
Who crave warmth against all apathyshare crimson journeys through tunneledbarricades leading to the upper left cornerof my sheeted cheek. I swell when they visit,I turn soup into hard butter for them, ask themto accede, their seedlings will be enough.Never really hatching, only becoming moreand more daughters, they all have the same name.The daughters, like leaves we rack into gutters and side… Read more →
American Lake
what does it look like? how can we be sure of the holographic wirethe fishing line tied to the back of the boatwhich trolls and twinesinto spectacular space?how can we be sure it won’t scare the fish away? in the dream, you are on the boat,not my father. you tell me to cut the wire, let the fish goyou and i threwthe tackle boxes… Read more →
Moon Child
I have a moon inside of me.It’s a rare disease, I know. When I was young, I mistook itfor religion, the way I would glow when my moon was gibbous. I examinedmy illumination in the bathroom mirror while my older sister banged on the locked door.“Mom, she’s taking too long!” she’d complain. I knew I couldn’t explain. Sometimes my moonwould… Read more →
Ancestral Throat
In their native language the elders have taught me how to say, I hear your skin darken. To be that animal is to make godless music with the wave of my tongue, a series of cymbal crashes in the orchestra pit. You stand on the land bridge separating the villages while sliding the edge of a blade upwards along your… Read more →
Lamentation for Two Voices
On the second floor of the white-brick building they repeat your name, We appreciate the concern expressed in your message, but we have exhausted all available options.one among hundreds, like the rogue cells multiplying in your blood, We regret to inform that no further interventions are available at this time.until you answer presente, I am here,I am still here, and you rise… Read more →
Safe Passage
With his light skin, my great-grandfather evaded a lynching in Little Rock, AR. He who does not illuminate monstrous in cover of night / smuggles a trio of sons / passed burning poplar / passed snapped neck. Bundled flesh freight / secluded in burlap laid across steel truck bed / This fair passage the weight of witness / Devoid of… Read more →
Endlight
Seated in gray swivel chairs sharing teawith a friend beneath the industrial sterilityof corporate phosphorescence, she declaresthat all consciousness is lightabout which I agree but don’t want to admitbecause it means that when in dying,as my grandma shed the opaque fastenersand began to gleam, I held fastto the steal locker of my father’s pain.He wondered how anyone could havelet his… Read more →
Heavy Metals
I was seventeen / when I devoured my first / car crash / the warped metal made my eyes / roll back / and laser headlights shot out of my / hip bones / I never sleep on my / back / because the cars in my guts / spark against each other / and if I / twist /… Read more →