poetry

  I have never held a hand that didn’t sweat, but every morning I wake a body full of aches. I do not know how to define dance or the age of the earth. I don’t even try. Instead I divide … Read More

  I wake up with an entire town planted in my heart. No one comes to the town that was planted in my heart, and by my second cup of coffee, the town has become a ghost town. For breakfast … Read More

  I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been granted my share of closeness—an unexpected hug from the girl I’ve been pining over, or the sort of friend who figures out how to get through to me when I’ve … Read More

  I love calling things a prelude but I’m also gouging meaning out, but that also means it’s nothing on its own. I’ll be a better writer if I read more, so I pretended the fibers of an orange slice … Read More

  I haven’t written in years. Too cooped up with the thought of how ink and lead are really just euphemisms of ash. This afternoon I had diarrhea and a lemonade. I know what you’d say to that: something I’ll … Read More

  I Gawkers press against glass asking each other if it’s him eating an airport salad. It is Chris, and flattering to be loved in a public way but noisy, meaningless too. Chris is an exhibition: fans gather his fragments … Read More

  Driving across Colorado somewhere just past Fairplay grassland split by fences cattle packed into huddles dark haze of mountains north beyond them, a fire had burned for weeks in the mountain pass smoke blooming between peaks. I’d stopped the … Read More

  Enter the ice storm where the dark shines in celluloid as the wind conceives its latticework of sleet. Enter the pillow, its hushed discussion, a crushing of the throat’s vellum. Enter ice pick and chisel, the gouge, the crackling, … Read More

  How long does a shooting star last? How far does it travel? Your hospital gown half- unbuttoned, your face half- absent, your eyes crawl over me. I don’t know if I’m still here. A second, maybe two to us, … Read More

  People are less likely to help each other in loud cities, the ecologist said. To describe a silence, identify first what it’s not: the parade marching beyond the window, the ocean’s dull fanfare. Close up, we feel the shudders … Read More

  On March 24, 2001, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson accidentally killed a dove after the bird collided with a 100-mph pitch thrown by the 6’10” future Hall of Famer during spring training. We are only ever as harmless as … Read More

  If I had skin, I’m sure everyone here would be jealous of it. I’ve learned over the years that you can still hear a heart beating through the sound of heavy rain. Before you ask: this addled mind isn’t … Read More