POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
Soft Porn and Cuban Pine

It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.

You can’t make them love you, no matter how artfully you betray yourself

Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.

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.

First

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

Several someones

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

Condolences

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

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.

oh Manifesto

The collective
failure
of ethical standards