Winter 2023

The Horizon sweeps forever (an illusion). Vast emptiness between Water, sky, & me. The freedom of air uninhibited by anything. Gentle waves kissing sand. II. A waitress with slender arms knows when I’ve had too much coffee. The smell of pines places comfort Into a...

Moving across the firmament I chase a spill of sky painted across 94E. Beyond the St. Croix and River Falls and its four fireworks stores. Past geese pulsing above the highway’s southbound bend and sheaths of truckbeds. Until like a small child tiring after a tantrum,...

Blink and you’ll miss it That was never us We took our time That’s why I liked you so much Listened to you talk about synthetic oil Deer season, and snowmobiles I was good with my hands too You knew that though The end came faster than us I had to hurry you along When...

i’ve been coming up empty and being soft in the winter has been making me nauseous. some people are not made for tenderness, the way neither of us were made to be housebodies. in my dreams we raise our kids jewish but they still have christmas and we go up north to...

Under a thickly woven labyrinth A thatch, I cannot breach I scream for you and watch As you set yourself ablaze I breathe in smoke, my chest catching fire Burning with words I could not say Singeing my lungs and Scorching my tongue I cannot breathe. Cowering in fear...

there comes a timewhen you must go blindinto the dark there is lightbut it’s behind youthe only knowledge is forwardstep after step friends can take you only so farto the edge of your own understandingthen it’s the launchand the throb of wavesseemingly...

I called you in the hospital today. You sounded like you, except groggier and muddled. It was probably the signal or the meds. You said you felt okay and listed everything on the menu. Front and back it was five pages. (would you eat it all if you could?) I let you...

I. Casually discussing cancer, as if it’s a roommate that doesn’t pay rent. You know it’s a problem, but maybe if you ignore him, everything will be fine . II. He starts stealing your shit. I mean, he was always stealing your shit. And you feel sick, for letting it...

I have a bodily dream one that in me sparks a twin flame on two pillar candles named Unknown & Uncertainty tall soldiers straight waiting burning until I am wiping away their hot tears as if delaying their shudder & slouch into waxy viscera. with time their...

When she took the stage We shrieked like little lambs Suckling vodka teats Glitter gauzes to fill Our patchy coats She sang sequence Shiny Shania Bright Britney Metallic Madonna Coated the lounge like a cornea We were the pupil taking it in Frozen before our queen...

The cabinets are emptied For a newer catastrophe. Signals Slide across the musty surfaces. Reports filter through the wood. A handsome man touches my mother On the shoulder. Anonymous pigeons Wash their wings in the slow wind. Someone wanted to ask a question. The...

Time is now Or never Plucking petals Off a flower She loves me - A tentacle of grasping She loves me not - A highway of despair I stand in the middle Christ’s heart in my chest Stems at my feet Pema, metta, kama Trio of desire Roots waiting for declension Past,...

I rush to finish my chores quickly So that I have time to stare off blankly— There’s nothing poetic about Forgetting to water your plants. Tear drop coffees till Your sun hangs crooked. I’ll try the new album But won’t touch the strings myself.

Fuck you, man! I am a glorious machine of ambiguous erudition. I am gramophone and a chastity belt. I sing calamity and make sex svelte. I cornucopia depression. Myopia my impression. I impersonate softly, impregnate eyes haughtily. I unfurl a wingspan of nations’...

All night I hear his tongue. It twists and writhes–a strong muscle that creates a projection that is not my own. He is creating messages of rain, of hurricanes, of earthquakes. Falling knives cut my cheeks and I awake from my insomnia. Eyes that glaze and I speak with...

On that drive east down 36th street the summer’s last sun glint arrowed a shard across the windshield. The breaks: not quick enough. The squirrel’s dart: too direct, kissing the wheel with a deliberation its heart couldn’t sustain. Still, the veins sent blood. From...

We say house meeting to talk about the dishes missing bread lid and sneaking eggs, water for ducks and greens for sheep, rodents who cherish our crumbs, toilets all our ass cheeks have kissed, clutter in the early hours, dirty salad bowls at lunch, harried cleanups in...

Pizza Pizza.™ No, like. I mean fucking pizza, man. I'm not a pizza- man, I'm a pizza man I am all the poetry, man Poetryman! ©(pending) I am elbow pads on a sweater. Hot-N bothered& ready Should I hang up my scarf & quit poeming? Half-ə and all ah! Toppings...

I took a train to Naples To see the Farnese Hercules A hero of Hellenistic proportions A marble bear, tired Resting his weight on a club My professor told me the statue Didn’t work. That if it were real The club would fall, and him too “He just couldn’t stand like...