Where Words Walk Out Into Traffic

"Do you realize you're often having three conversations at one time" my friend tells me, laughing, as she aims to keep up. I think it's a bit like directing traffic, avoiding collision, one hand on the wheel and one in the air, gesticulating. My thoughts are generally on heightened alert. I live in a 5' 1" body in rooms built for people closer to six feet. I reach and dodge at the same time. It's just what the poet does.

We come to the beach and climb out of the car. I still and quiet as if a lullaby has entered the equation. We walk the wet sand barely noticing the water as it overlaps and pulls back. We have been friends so long the conversation need not stop. Thirty years wide. We trudge and pause, build things together. My feet covered in the damp blue black sand. You wear your overcoat unbuttoned. I remember the profiles of faces of people you name, and we laugh at what we can and cannot recall. There is fog crossing over the bridge nearby, thrumming with its own sound of others in their vehicles, halting, honking, talking, and yet there is no one that need be here in this moment of multiple stories and the small edifices we will leave behind.

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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 ...

A Matter of Travel

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As Mourning Doves Persist

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