Proud Expanse

Everything here is about limited space,
filling in the gaps of white, green,
those long shadowed rooms that
appear between houses, under eaves.

There is no great open plain,
no things that sleep and exist
on their own terms, on this
so-called hallowed ground.

How odd it must feel to live
in a world of no abandonment.

I cannot help but think
of the proud expanse of home,
which is nothing like the wild west,
but just as defiant.

The night looms with a lavender light,
the color of stars, smog, and a distant city.

The ground rumbles under the weight of it all,
hums with the sound of what I left behind,
the sound of where I’m going.

Lightning Coming from Somewhere

I’m trying to be good,
but now I have a book with an inscription,
a storm to rumble through the sea of my sheets,
teeth that clench, clench, clench their way
through night and straight on ‘till morning.

I am awake.

I’ve got a fever that gallops through my body,
rising up from the nape of my neck,
flushing my face, granting me the joy
of hearing my own pulse,
sharp as arrowheads in my ears.

You’re a cherry-blister on my palm,
a wailing garbage truck at five a.m.,

the humidity wound up in my hair
which I try and calm before I go out,
before people see that I’ve got
lightning coming from somewhere

cloud-to-ground, cloud-to-cloud,
heart-to-heart.

As Fast as Rockets

I’ve got bushel baskets of hearts,
the wood stained raspberry-red,
juice pooling in the bed of this wagon.

Things like this don’t just happen,
they collide, slip and stumble
across slick floors, meteor-fall
into your lap, stain your hands
when you try to cradle them,
pat them dry like soft berries.

The magnetism of things interjects,
calls you out beneath the sheets,
rebels against your better judgment.

Your eyes are as blue as hotel pools,
your lips as tempting as having just one more.

This is an entanglement, a predicament,
a first-walk-on-the-moon
without enough air.

These boots will leave unmistakable prints--
tracks in the snow leading to my heart.

Love as fast as rockets.
We accelerate towards heartbreak.

All That Corn in Those Silos

I could use the kernels to count
all the times I've thought of you.

All Those Other Galaxies

there is something heavier
than these feathers in my throat,

these horses galloping
from one plush corner
of my heart to the other,

these ropes tethered to pull tight.


...if only it were so easy to cut through
longing with silver shears.


a comet burned through my life
and I expected it to stay,

to say, this is happiness
and you are happiness
and this is different
than all those other galaxies.


you’re even inside my bruises
where violets and rhododendrons are blooming.

there are gardens in my knees.

on my way

I am on my way
to somewhere sleek and soft
with my eyes out of focus,
my blistered hands
shoved into sweater-pockets.

I’ve got a fever for more,
a word so expansive
I can hardly breathe it out.

but what if I want to live here?

buy that tiny house I’ve admired for years
with the silver trashcan on the porch,
& the stars it its window-eyes?

what if I want to
catch the stormclouds in my cheeks
as they rumble down-river?

Lightning is only as thick
as this pen I am writing with,

and this town is as
enveloping as leaves
that flood the storm drains.

Sustain Us

In a way, we were like lovers.
in another, like those who
do not know each other at all,

but the magnetism of things interjects.

...& if only it was that easy to forget,
to not want to share this bed with you,
these lips like soft buds.

I’ve got freckled shoulders
and nights filled with bells,
electric eels that keep me awake

with only the sound of the wheezing &
whistling delivery vans of the early morning.
& as the newspaper slaps our porch,

wasps clatter at my ceiling

as if to say sustain us
as if to say love is waiting right here.