POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
i do not want to wait until it’s too late

the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.

beach
On Undressing a Color / On Undressing a Girl

I imagine that undressing a color, though, would be so much like peeling a memory away from the grey and the white matter of your brain.

An Endeavor of Being Now

We stop doing dishes while
a mile unwinds
from the tree outside.

Electric Eels, Finishing School, Teeth

Millions of Americans have been affected by identity theft. It’s probably the greenhouse gases.

On the Night Row-Houses Across the Street Catch Fire

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

First

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

The Kotel in Jerusalem is Filled with Cracks

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

REVENGE SCENE

Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

Clueless & Briefly Gorgeous

I buy too much, for someone of my stature.
could pawn a skinny metaphor to purchase a plump skin.
its reputed in our lineage— to daydream a life that shreds our pockets.

3:17 AM as Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

oh Manifesto

The collective
failure
of ethical standards

Ode To the Dove Pt. VI (Avrom Sutzkever)

Yes I am guilty, I’m guilty. A sin was desirable then.
Bring the dancer back to the stalks.

There is an alternative universe

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

Back Suplex

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

appetites

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.