When the bombs come, we’ll be happy ghosts hiding from the giant spiders, our bodies no longer aching from bad wiring, that thing we thought was a good idea that one time and took months to recover from. When the world becomes translucent glass, outshining the jealous stars, and we finally feel how substantial shadows are from the inside out,…
For Queer Kids Doom Scrolling Retweet a curse, a prayer or both, phone a shelter from the wolf that is everywhere but in front of you, in the small space where you are your own joy; there is no wolf here. There is no reason to give your joy to the wolf. Such a beast lives in code, lives in…
during the pandemic. She’s considered close contact, after a bad one-night stand. No symptoms, still she’s in lockdown. The text comes in from the boy, Freedom— what he saved in her phone. Freedom: got tested today. Her mind goes to the sex, lackluster. I’m positive. It’s been weeks—Why are you texting me? How long had it been, lockdown? A midnight…
At the top of the ladder of angels lies the highest ceiling of clouds before God, six wings, with eyes looking everywhere and nowhere at once. A seraph poses for a photo with God at a cocktail party. Stilettos emerge from long legs and the weather of Islands. She who dines with God listens, she who is not a seraph…
I close my eyes and I can see you. Early, early in the morning pouring from the percolator one-handed telephone cradled on your shoulder stretched umbilical cord attached to the wall. Clutching your favorite lipstick-smeared mug chipped and blooming psychedelic flowers sipping the inky liquid, oily surfaced, burnt and bitter Chock Full O’Nuts on sale . . . because you…
The Four Immeasurables* are a Motown quartet singing between seams of appearance as tanks roll over swollen plains and mortars demolish labor of centuries …
spring from the invisible hunger of all that’s hidden outside of homes, these pairs of sighs bright as angels’ wings, wild as wind on fire. Two lovers walk their dog to pass some time, daylight heat lifting, mountain dreams descending, the witching hour of everything out of sight. These are dangerous days. The smoke from the Lake, Saddle Ridge, Salt,…
The rain has come to ionize the alien frontier, calling out storms over a smeared earth. We sit in varying stages of anesthesia staring at the long sky, the secondhand measured in lives. We disciple new religions with the sun and the moon. We abandon them as they dismay. We survey the rim of heaven with our elastic eyes. Rivers…
Before enlightenment chop wood carry water. After enlightenment chop wood carry water. ~ Zen Kōan My father’s mother churned the deep litter with her bare hands. Her gnarled knuckles pounded the earth or shooed away clay pebbles as she expertly swooshed gnats with a puff of air out the side of her mouth. Her humming of hymns haltered…
Which reminded me of those middle school dances when we would slow dance to “Under the Bridge” the end-of-the-dance song, the finale the last chance to be close to your crush or watch your crush dancing with someone else under taped up streamers or maybe balloons for Valentine’s Day that turned from blood-red to bruise-purple in the swaying darkness. Or…