Poetry

Not the kingdom of God, being undecidedand all, nor the kingdom of this life, givenits many irregularities and the peach treewith its offspring of oranges but I admireand, dare I say it? love citrus and the decayit’s capable of. I’m capable if I want to be.It took this many years of licking salt cubes.I’m staring […]

“Don’t promise a pumpkin and deliver a squash.” —Matthew Feinstein I. We nod. We sleep. We wake,wondering about the sun— every night, do we summon it?I wake up supercharged, heaving  barbells up a wall of mouths. I believe in poetry above all else. That doesn’t make me anythingbut a poor fish in a brilliant pond  of amniotic slug […]

For a brief moment I want to be (w)reckless—forget the weather, the smell of melted chocolate& jewelry rust on my grandmother’s dying skin.She said there were lemons growing outof my mouth. She knew the fruit but not my name. In the sun I am just another meltingthing. I smile at strangers with all my teeth.I […]

you sprawl across the thistle of a weedy slope, bones splayed over the hill-belly,friends beyond your fingertips.fog between your teeth. you watch a scant coyote feebling along the flank. too much rib, less feral than winter. pluto yoking at the sun. light out of reach. this will become another day you don’t want to remember. it’s lucky you’re wired for forgetting. your housekeys,the trash you […]

I A swan is eating another swan.It is not beautiful.It is hideous, and bloody, and terrifying. It is also beautiful. II Your mother goes to the doctor and they finda shadow on her lung. When they open her up, insideher lung is a blossomed calendula. When the doctors askhow it got there she saysshe inhaled it […]

I’ve become adept at shepherdingheartbreak to minute areas of the body,treating the lesions with smoothing iron and ice in equal measure.  I’m an imperfect mechanism,an unskilled plough hand—my pastures razed, my stained bones fallow.  I wish to beat my armsinto an instrument more useful to a worldthat’s full and waitingwith cocked hammers.           The mystery in my body          is spoiling in this climate: […]

after Sandra Cisneros,             in a nutshell,  i have returned to you like                              the way death returns when one gets depressed. grief has unlit everything in me back & forth,                              but i am jealous of the veinsthat form smiles on my face. Yeshua is jealous of me,                              i can do what he can’t do of me.  hallowed be […]

on earth, golden silk orb-weavers build asymmetrical webs, with the hub—or center—positioned towards the upper edge. & it is here that they sit & wait, so that when theirprey does arrive, they might use gravity to pounce & kill, quickly. in 2011, these spiderswere sent to space. & scientists aboard the International Space Station discovered […]

Earth is a ringed planet. A teenage faggot is a body orbiting low atmosphere The ground and its people swing them up like discus, but not enough to break Escape velocity. Thousands of blue-haired children float in the solar breeze Like a Kubrickian slide. The richest men on Earth launch garbage into the stars Like […]

Home Improvement Amongst the implied violenceof the chain and rope aisle at Home Depot,I am emboldened to make let’s-fuck eyes at strangers.Then the soft amber of the lighting fixture sectionwrings me out and I want someone to please comeand pick me up, pluck me from a mean girls’ sleepover,drive me home and put me to […]

for and after Kevin Bertolero Do you remember how it felt to be boys in the grass? Staining our every-thing, our nowripped jeans we wore through the knees? It was so big then, possibility; love waseverywhere and for everything. We rode our bikes to the base of the hill where theprefect tree was, we watched […]

It says “remember when you lost a tampon inside yourself?” It says “scratch your head.” It says“open your eyes.” It sends memories I’d forgotten. I’m forced to wonder what forgetting means,if I can be reminded so easily. My moon puts me back in my body when I have dreams aboutlevitating. When I was younger I […]

The things that saved us are the same as they ever were.The spring irises glazed with rain, puppies learning to walk,the feel of his hands in yours or his skin,or your own skin, soft against the bedsheets.The way water cools the throat and slakes thirst,or how a good meal softens and rounds the belly,the way […]

And some of the other times and the volleyball girls in milkglass socks beating reddened hands on rival eyes, well the orange tree is right there and if ur so hungry lie beneath it with ur mouth open catch some flies swat summer in the face and the sunset will go blushred fences in between […]

The neurologist tells me I’m intriguing, a specimento write about in her research.  She’ll change my nameof course.  It will help legions of doctors.  Tegretolis shaped like baseball diamonds and tastes like grapes.  After the seizure, I could not speak or type.Day one of Tegretol I float in space.  I bump into walls.Day two I […]

I was reading about solar energy And the book said the sun is the most abundant source of energy available on earth And the sun said you mistake my everything for nothing And I said fuck And I said I know how that feels And my ex boyfriend looked down and said fuck And my […]

a plant does not have thefunctional capacity toknowingly self-destruct; their chloroplasts do not choosewhether to accept the sunlightfrom which they photosynthesize— the sun, simply, says, “i love you,”and the plant says, “thank you,”and they continue on with their days. the plant does not apologizefor the support it accepts. itbreathes in, breathes out, and gives what […]

when the world said sink I sankI am in this way ordinaryI put pasta in the water watch it bloatevery time I think I’m new the old comes back like a stray I once fedimagine a well-read strange man I never get tired of my same storyI’ve tidied up my roomand left my inbox openin case he […]

Dreaming of Alaskan Islands we wound up in Dubuquewhere hills of inedible corn stretch into our vast American nothing. In sunlight and my day dress,I am your favorite burdenbuckled sweetly into the passenger seat,Our hands sticky as you pull yours away to make a left-hand turn. There are no canyons here. Still,I am probably luckyeach day […]

high water i think i’ll live forever because that’s what sharks do. i wanna dive into myself like an ocean bleeding out on the shore, splitting sand down into sand. i wannamiss class because i’m waiting for the bus with youon it, the morning shape of your face all ears & rosyeyelids. how much i’ve forgotten. it’s […]

I wish I were deadis a perfect example of subjunctive mood.What most people don’t realizeis how to conjugate the bodyto expose how it feels to hold onto improper objects. Psychologists call thisintrojection. To engage with a man, I must deny any sign I want to touch him. If I were to tell the truth,I would explain fewer peopleknow […]