I drive this brown place

Dry air sucks me toward the stark pines in concert
on the mountain, silhouettes of women re-assemblng.

I love this brown place where flashes of strata show flesh
centuries of bark and moon. I drink this place

like hard water.

I navigate an older childhood of alcohol and noises

behind adobe walls. I climb crumbling brown earth and

love what others discard. We assemble as slim vials
assemble as stories. I drive the whimsy map of maternal

pines with tiny nuts to bite down on.

This gritty ride is nearly angelic. Assemblage. My hand

on the steering wheel, a learned behavior. I saunter

in exodus, dressed all in gray with flames of Fall

breaking from mottled cottonwood.

Enchantment the given adjective. Brown and lavender

hues like birds that punctuate the night. Book splayed

on the passenger seat beside me. Mud clarified with rain.

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Vessel

Inside I imagine puckered cups of butter cookies nested in paper that releases a sigh But instead there may be fiction within wishes never reciprocated Playbill of redundant arguments One black glove found fraying This vessel on an emptied table solo temptation is labeled with another’s name Guarded initials as if carved in melting snow A tool unsuited to the task of prying open Not yet valentine

Shameless Early Promotion

My poetry book, The Fiction of Stillness, is available for pre-order now on Barnes and Noble. Official release date August 1st, 2024. Here's a taste: ... The table is smooth and round symmetric The chairs are haphazardly placed at the end of this day I have breast cancer I say into the receiver [communities must] pool resources How to produce the sounds of the imaging report into sentences that resonate with months of postponement weighty contrast on my right side computing and comparing IM ratios for greater insight not sufficient to prove the efficacy of screening ...

Broken Bits and Mending Tape

S acred stones roll around on the floor of my car, carried in over years of scavenging. Pocketed. Parceled. Placed on dashboard or grave. Markers of present coloring past. The sun bathes the windshield just so and the secret messages written in mud or snow show themselves for the innocent blessing that they are. I walk into this side street café with my bruised heart in a purple and black satchel and am greeted by a circle of banjo players and one free seat against the window. Chairs like we inhabited in elementary school when things were still made of wood, grafted together at the corners with metal, corners rounded and smooth. We kept our notes in desks and lockers, wrote whispers of names we adored on the plain brown wrappers around our math books. Took broken bits and mending tape, carted cassette songs of guitar players who have since died or changed their names. Like mantras, directions to the river canyon where we could picture the rough rope as magical swi...

As Mourning Doves Persist

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