a student writes his name on top of mine
A Taste both Sour– and Acquired
crushed velvet in the form of comfort that your mother couldn’t give you
youth and ambivalence; a taste both sour and acquired. eventual resentment
turned eventual nostalgia. the taste buds change every seven years like a curse
like cicadas; wrapped in evolution and a new pant size every few months
you used to be a medium now you can hardly imagine such things.
sometimes I imagine kissing my own forehead.
Calmer Heads Prevail
Durango undulates/exhaust/like a child running/
with a dollarstore American flag/passing road signs/
with their hole-punched stems/for the wind to get
through/I feel like that sometimes/when we talk about
/Uncle Johnny/we say he was hit by a bus/
never that he stepped/I think speaking/on things
gives them too much power/when I die/
/erase my notes app/and my bad poetry/
you can decide which is which/but/
I’m still thinking about:North’s
Halloween costume/daughter to Kim & Ye/
dressed as the bear/from her father’s/
Graduation album/this, a nice moment
from the internet/but/I am reminded of:
begging/my mom for golf balls/because
no one buys my Dad presents/now/that
we are not a family/this is his bus/my
durango/North’s golf ball/she will
not swallow it till she is older/if at all.
It is genetic prophecy/your father/
will be the first to rake you through
the coals/with no memory of it/and
your mother/
Kim/Aunt Peg/
will pick up the embers.
Latent With Possibility
The Roku remote slips from my hand
like when people call me by my old last name
like the student, sixteen and brooding
calls me, mother, and is met with laughter.
How did we get here I ask the indent
in my ring finger from where
I grated a part of myself
into our dinner ; the part that never came out
I use a tongue scraper now.
I used to do cocaine and talk
to strangers. My youth–
it sits in the visceral
only to emerge when
I’m actually old and don’t
take myself so seriously
That’s when we all Benjamin
Button. I click to fast forward
I can’t skip ads on this one
Limbo isn’t such a bad place to
be though – its latent with possibility
My Birthstone is a Ceramic Doorknob
Inherit the half moon–
the good half anyway
and watch as the pennys save you
I watched in horror
as the chain-linked fence became
her hand
the way a child watches
an injury with such utter
unbelieving.
I heard that evil
rots you from the inside out
No one admits to it though.
my birthstone is a ceramic
doorknob
and it tarnishes so
