Poetry

Night’s endlessness taps at the mind,
my jet lag a constant drip down the windows.
Because I am here for a month, a girl returned
to her mother, I let myself go soft

What about the man who cannot touch 
anyone without them morphing 
into the only woman he loved and lost? Not recklessly,
but like a river diverted by a stone’s weight, 

Nothing can stop the dogs
from barking, not even

the moon’s new dress.
 

To win a free mattress, lovers must sleep 
hidden and apart behind a wall to discern 
each other by the cadence of their breath. 

this heart, its caverns of somewhere laughter, its waking craters, 
its forest of knives. Dilate its thin pulsing complicities

Tired of silence, tired of rock, tired of orchestration,
let me tune us in this evening to FM 91.1, The Point: 
“All y’all’s favorite home for the candid sounds 
of people sleeping.” 

your hand swells my neck, pretty, you say
i am, no matter how decimal-small. 
my eyelash flutters across your shoulder.
gravity. you land on my chest skin—

say i was a careless shutting
of language an accident
sound whirling into the guttur

The dead leaves that won’t admit they’re dead 
are called marcescent 

It was late June, the solstice. 
The day took hours to end. You look like me,
my father said quietly.