SNOW DAY AFTER EGO DEATH

today in nonnie’s honor
i pay bills from bed
oil up my hands
wear my flammable bathrobe 
all afternoon
one breast covered the other not
maybe i will unearth
her yellow black mold notebook 
the one i put in the freezer
for 3 months
trying to make it touchable 
so i could read what she wrote 
about sad gratifying sex 
with a nameless man
somewhere with a balcony 
today in nonnie's honor
i tell the mirror
it could be worse 
cut my fingernails
make rice with lots of butter
and eat it
standing up

MOTIF OF A WOMAN WHO LOVES ANOTHER WORLD

and just like that
you’re all about it
if i bleed don’t you
twist in vain 
no direct channel
i used to hold you 
like a bear
you used to sweep me down 
past the places 
that pooled
thin skin holding in 
cellular bloom 
golden fur mirror morph
would you choose the circle 
this time
hark the herald angels say
all these weird, weird days 
what are they dressed as 
a snow bunny an oiled up crone
what does your audience look like
dream girl throws you a ball of sting 
and pulls you in

GOODNIGHT

litmus tests where the
default goes
demanding throbs lull
new reflexive going
holding a lot
quick to dry the spill
see how all things fit together
or don’t 
taper from puzzling 
to something wide enough 
to melt 
like i might want a sandwich 
so bad 
summon the soft bread 
the mustard 
the salt and chew
stars out my window
simulated rain under
the flower silk 
cradle me back
the old holding
down

A NAME LIKE VERA

nostril flare at the flamingo solo
playing fast and clean
the deterioration is on the inside
you look great
erica used to say that about vodka
it preserves you
straying from the contract 
just floating around
old midnight friend
milk dud eyes
my nipple in this sweater
everything happens 
you can’t rely on people
they will let you down
only jesus won’t 
cross hatch on your brow
hash mark smile lines 
deep in a dream of you
high at the wet beach
on a driftwood see saw
lighting cigarettes
with candles

POEMS I DIDN'T WRITE 2025

FOR ASTRAEA

THE BRIGHT OTHER WORLD

GOLDEN SWEETIE

TAXES VS BELLS

SKIN (WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON) 

FIRST THING

FACE VALUE

HOW TO BE A POLE/NOT A BANNISTER

YEAR OF THE SNAIL

HIGHWAY 212

VANIR

ANOTHER POEM ABOUT WHAT I DON'T WANT/ANOTHER POEM ABOUT WHAT I DO

THROW AWAY

GOODNIGHT GARTH

where would you put
yourself in the world? 
come to understand 
that name  - 
a woman who makes 
it happen
by holding a mirror 
to her hip

LET’S GET LOST

old stories about Chet
Pannonica in her benz
your heritage food is popcorn
mine’s potatoes i dive for them
in the garden soup 
shower in salt mash with oil
i’m never bored
posing for photos
bones that catch the 
romantic light
charisma pastis
imagination is funny
when i was younger
there was always someone
to drive me to the show 
black rain, still my city 
what about all the affairs 
no one ever finds out about
are they still wrong?
sometimes guilt feels like a 
bound bird inside you, 
other times it’s the missing accent
to the stew
bare mattress wine in a 
camping cup
we cared for each other
good at getting lost 
cozy with the
sympathy con
pretty in glasses 
soft voice like 
warm milk 
like heroin 
a woman’s neck
beautiful unbreakable
bamboo stalk
everytime we say goodbye
people really go through hell
and there’s nothing
finer

NO PRESSURE

i have 8 poems to write/find
i am late for acupuncture 
lol my life
last time the wrist needle
almost took me out
that’s a really loaded one 
she said

SCRAP

we stepped over the resting branches
emergency orange garlands
like beaded curtains
to dave’s fire in the woods
i stepped into the field dip
where the snow makes 
pressed wreath baskets 
how does the actress feel
pretending to step into the unknown
that unknown too of the actress 
stepping into the acted where 
the rush of the freeway
and wind are not siftable?
where your heart closes its doors?
moon for the go around goes
that our children may 
be born

ALCHEMY

dad goes on about Bach and what came before 
Bach’s little hand reaching through the manuscript cage 
that kept safe the directions for what notes
you could or could not play  for god
strange beauty willing its way
basements of the old world, lightless dank
to tune out earth’s nuisance energies stomping above 
tinkering towards times other minds
or just same old  hunger to
domino slinky rude goldberg orchestrate
eventually the brick drops on the toothpaste
praise be something ejects
but are you still in the earth in a box
in the the body of the earth? 
can’t build a womb but can try 
can’t be a worm but can try 
dig a hole, at least, cover with plywood 
and mulch to camouflage 
hope no one falls in while 
you’re at it down there  
moist deep dampening the electric 
curse work bombardment
tuning in tuning in
so much attunement makes it 
harder to blend
metals and planets
solvent solving hunger 
desire that leaps like fire,
something lead a thirst 
for sifting and fitting together 
but at some point they stopped making
that music for god and started making
music that sounds like her herself
because you can’t help what overtaketh you 
magenta dragon on the shelf that
the collapsing man picks up then returns
trades for a wooden carousel, a grecian vase 
spirit breath bringing matter down down down
like objects might drop and birth back
a modern dust, what's left, ash mounds
symbols flat like process disguised
uncle phil’s cross and star of david and ET emblem 
hanging on a chain from the bathroom mirror 
corner of the murphy bed tucked back halfway
his body transformed to soot in portioned
ziplock bags in a little hello kitty lunch boxes
we each got one, stood in the wind 
wondering how to responsibly release 
so he could be absorbed 

ALL THINGS MUST COOL

collapse in the walk-in when 
lately my veins are so with me
get in this way, chemicals leading
by the drawstring
i said it’s ok for people 
to be disappointing you,
its ok to be disappointed in people 
like your therapist also said 
and we let the tears fall and were turtles
after being at kitchen war for months 
i don't know, it feels like there is too much 
to leave here, and not enough to make me stay 
“make me stay” pleading like a supremes song
nothing makes me, that i know, i am made 
of some things, nothing, no one thing
but not made to
though i do spawn devotion that 
lifts boxes while whistling 
tremolo small talk
through the otherwise crushing
gridlock
wake up with death in my chest
either i’m dying or i'm connected to 
everything that is
modernity escape room but also just 
valentines turning tea colored
in the sun
it's always both
we put a lamp on the table 
and now the room is warm enough 
for sitting 
anna and i pass a space heater 
across the hall
the clouds make an ocean
on the fence 
go now to find the buds on the branches 
at the little beachlet where the other woman
is also doing something secret
walk by ben's house admire how 
the spray paint on his previa 
looks like wildflowers
the best part is the breath my bloods gets 
when it has to move and the best part 
is when my brother is happy and the best part
is when we hug and i don't think
and the best part is the low voice
handfuls at the roots
and the best part is there is 
no recipe

POEM A DAY

i don’t know guys
i ran into soph at the grocery store
a place where i’m always avoiding everyone
what was i doing? i was getting food my dad had
texted me to get i was in a spiral of doing 
everything but poems, or sewing, or feeling the air
lately i know i am unfriendly with anything i want to do
have to make it something i have to do to do it
soph and i drifted toward each other
by the potatoes or citrus
and said we felt like we’d been hanging out
we haven't but here we have been on blogspot
despite the radiating hellscape i hate saying hellscape
why did i say that i want to be the furthest distance 
into the mountains from being that
already two rentals have demanded my
pre-determined sign removal
no judgment all the judgment in the world unfounded
will we laugh one day will we find
things from now beautiful after all?
of course we will this narcissism is literally
liter-olly my dead friend Pearson would say on
a manic spree, he was also Ashley eventually 
but then later not and everytime i say the other name-pronoun 
i wonder what is right-wrong i will never know
he and she are dead but he loved me and she  
had love for me Ashley Pearson was found naked
with her clothes on fire climbing up a telephone poll
in Oakland, at the time i could not handle did not
know but now i can call it beautiful, so maybe that’s
the metric like how her love letters made me feel 
like i was choking I sob smeared his charcoal portrait 
dutifully i tried to mend the smudges 
when he asked for it back for a college portfolio
glad to begone my shaded curse face frozen
though now somehow i cherish whatever papers remain
don’t want death to be the thing that makes
possible, it isn't and is, plays its part
the death space opens
i don't know guys, it's not up to me to figure out
though lord knows i will always try
that’s my signature move
on a whim i said my new years resolution was
“indulgence + diligence”
like a jane austen novel my knowing brutal
coworker said, more like a perfume they would sell 
at tj maxx, which is not a place that sells things
but rather a place that sells things
that didn't sell
cursive pastoral harkening 
ampersand austen, i can see it now
Pearson told me to take myself more seriously
and there is some erosion i feel some days
that may be getting me there
the landslide involves not being serious, also
and a poem clock calendar, and an expensive bag
of co-op kumquats eaten mostly in the aisles
avatar confessions making the month holy
against all odds, like carrying a camera around
i always say, anything could be a photo
to give these eyes the rest the taste
that they’ve been blinking for

I HAVE

i have the candles i have the beverage
i have the living song 
the bells and the crescendo
the walk and the bath
the wave in my hair
the memories streaming and 
the memories mute
i have the light
and the assurance, while it lasts
i have the living song!
and the body brains all over 
and the people who know them some 
have gone to battle against them
within them and beside me 
i have the temporary peace 
pregnant and cool
i have the ascension
and the patience, while it lasts
to merge
i have the possibility of entering
the creeping indigo
and the imprints of the others
and the lovers
the spies the keepers 
that cling this weave
seasoned so i
can have it 

NORTH OF SPOKANE

adam drinking the ice fields 
rapunzel doll with the matted hair
blind west warm love want to
me wrangling me 
baby wolf emblem at that gas station 
woman brushing curtain hair forever 
ink static dancing at the pull 
rainbow shards above
the empty fort grounds
weird grass sea anemone rings
not enough pathways to abide
rock to rock, ruin to mullein
drag the stick in snake lines
smoke trail to little fire
left strong and quiet
on the spit

i keep putting these off
the ocean is huge
my dad makes a fire and eats all the olives 
ICE is at the madrona grocery outlet 
and stalking johnny’s kitchen in belltown 
some days you can really feel all the metal 
that makes up these fortresses 
woozy timbre of a silver crown cos-playing my tooth
haven't we learned yet you can't just 
take pieces of the body out unnoticed  
lyft driver tells me there is
no replacement for the support of the family 
i asked about SSRIs, it was a long drive
the West is only good at some things, like surgery
intersections jammed with too many hungry guys 
to buy burgers for -- i did when there were less of them
sometimes the metal feeling turns to water
and streams our from my eyes
gentle dentist shoots anesthetic trembles
through the locked up tissues 
that means we’re near to the nerve
and that’s what we’re going for
out of place pain but intellectually
his hands feel right in my mouth
i don’t speak anyone’s language here 
but i put my mouth in their hands 
trusting they wish no harm
do you need a break?
is there anything more kind? 
leaning back think of all the people 
the tooth has known
everything the tooth piece that is leaving remembers
that the rest of me won't
i pay this place to be straight with me
they have hurt me before but i know 
they didn't want to
i pay them to be honest
but know they have to lie
like i pay people to let me be honest
then lie in their sanctioned secret chambers
like laziness, i get it
lamps and sleep, still worrying about 
what we miss when we do that
and who do we think we are
thinking we deserve both what we have
and what we are missing
i keep putting that off
the ocean is huge

LAND OF THE LIVING

poems are a chance
silver wild air
not the maiden in 
the rotting boat
not the daughter
living without sorrow
who takes you there?
girl in the movie
who takes you?
the one who knew the brain
buried in your foot
does he take you?
songs or money or tv 
or going to the only
open store in town 
to buy a single crayon
cream galaxy 
across the 
rough

ANXIETY

he’s marching up and down the stairs in dumb boots trying to open dumb packaging evil sound of sticky plastic my computer asthmatic dead ocean roar and all the wheels spin a chorus of wheels madly stunted in their spinning where by trying to be offline i am in fact on it, the line, the crawling black vein from elbow’s soft mouth to dizzy wrist rivers, used to curl them in to keep from seeing the closeness, too much this turtleneck under this too-thick luxury sweater that smells like a field I don’t belong to, and still i consider the sale as it counts down it’s clock on me, the promise of a package and how that might simulate the sun, maybe if the neck is a roll instead of a ridge it would feel less harsh less harness, triplet smack my skull without deciding to, always having admired the free terror of bodies that lightening whip through the streets, no mind to the lights signs sirens or horns, i’m hot and cold and outside of any country, triplet clap in attempt still too still and sick and possessed, cornered by all incoming input every beep, report of heartbroken aunt tasting envy again, frozen friend with the blunt demands, the fucking fire alarms testing testing, loose doorknob, dream where we joyfully plunged into an office supply mecca fades, take me back to the illicit canyons just days ago, before i let blame rage like a gas flame popping then gone, the blue water color of cold the heat blowing in the capsule as it hurtled through the mended earth wounds and our minds aligned with the light and the hour and the chance and the thought and nothing approached we were just moving along please let me move along

DAUGHTER II

i want to heal my mother’s body 
is this what it feels like to be a man 
who loves me or a mother who loves 
their youngest wishing simple peace from the rest
so the clear love can stay clear wanting to heal 
and protect, choiceless wanting to capture and hold
having in the holding in the healing state hoping
for bloom from the vase while the root 
cries for dirt? assurance contract you will be 
ok, you will not leave i will be able to help you
i care about you i talk to my mother and she sounds 
like she is at the bottom of life’s well
like she has grown accustomed to all discomfort 
everything foul no longer noticing intolerable 
temperature or vibration i want to surround her in 
down brushes one laid over the next so there are 
no gaps in the ring that rocks her sweeping wind
lifting lulling steeped in salves made from sweetest shores
i remind myself she still eats toast on little slavic 
flower plates still eats handfuls of huckleberries
still admires the rosebuds and robins
still picks calendula still ladles green soup still turns 
the christmas tree on still recovers the butterfly pin 
still sends me exploding emojis the easter island head 
the bathtub the ladybug the lightening bolt 
i am sick with luck and dread i want her to rise 
and wash her skin in warmest never hot water 
it’s important that she rises and washes 
and that she savors the day as it savors her 
noticing color after color after color
and herself in the colors

in sense that only 
sleep can bring
above the free world’s crib
i am urgent
drilling pegboard perfect holes 
between half grasps
alchemy/technology 
spirit/energy
long nights/ strange music
string through spy holes
dream synapse fizz
notions drop like 
splayed petal twist 
mobile breeze coughing
old world shadows and
new world stars
on the shallow
wall

DAUGHTER

turned the lights back on it was gone ten minute timer i really got places finally webs walking into webs you at the gas station laughing at the hellscape galloping potholes stay up late listening to songs in 3/4 fearing the silent scream i’ll emit when i sit at the piano to sob never having had the patience to learn tasting all the times i was my worst ways to the people i loved impossibly most petulant tantrum while she turns the punishing 2 chord trap into a widening ramble river and for a moment i shut up and then for a moment i sing along