Poems

Plague Year We stopped touching strangers in the early days of spring,We learned the names of variants the way you’d learn to sing,A children’s song in increments, a new verse every week,Until the whole catastrophe became a kind of bleak. The restaurants had stickers on the tables showing space,The little markers spelling out exactly who […]

Pillow Over Her Face I tried once.Held a pillow gently over her mouth.She threw it at meand said don’t you dare muffle me. She wants the world to hear it and the world obliges,The neighbors have resigned to the stages,Of her orgasm like the five stages of grief,First denial, then anger, then belief. Pillow over

Peice Lunacy (v5) Morning polish on my teeth,my skin pulled tight around a hollow mannequin grin that fits this tailored suit too well,Cards on the table, cards in my pocket,little white tombstones stacked with names I want to watch go still,Every compliment sticks to my face like tapewhile my mind rearranges furniture, bodies, plastic, and

Peace Is Boring The correspondent sent her kit back home after the treaty signed,and the editors said thank you and they gave her reassigned,to a city council meeting and a ribbon-cutting day,and she sat there in the folding chair and tried to find a way. Peace is boring, peace is boring,nobody needs a photographer when

Peacock On The Pavement He’s the loudest thing in a quiet roomWalks like the floor owes him somethingCologne like a verdict, smile like a courtroomAlways performing, never once becomingSpent his twenties being right about everythingSpent his thirties making sure you knewNow he’s got a story for every conversationAnd the story’s always somehow about youTurning into

Pacific Drift (Fukushima, 2023– ) Out in the drift, the water looks blue,but the future is stained in what the current will carry,Tides have no border, no judge,just a mouthful of ghosts for every child they bury,And when the last wave laps ashore, it brings not a blessing but a warning—We all eat the same

Nothing Special Weekend Nothing-special weekend and the paper on the floorNothing-special weekend, we don’t need nothing moreThe coffee’s been refilled twice and the dog is on the rugAnd we haven’t done a single thing of note except the hug This morning when we woke and the breakfast and the slowNavigation of the day with nowhere

Nurse Nancy’s Lobotomy Show Verse 1:She clicks down the hallway in cherry-red shoes,Dragging a needle and humming the blues.With a clipboard full of sins she’s marked in chalk,And a smile sharp enough to make time stop.Verse 2:The patients applaud from their straps and chains,As she takes a bow through their leaking brains.One wink from her,

Nothin But a Hestroke She rolled in on a cherry-red bikeSaid, “I ain’t yours, I just like the contest—You look like you fuck and forget your title.”Lit a smoke with my last encoreWe didn’t make love—we made a messShe gave me nothin’ but a heatstrokeLeft me breathless, hard, and brokeA kiss so wet it damn

Nothing Falls In Silence (9-11 NYC ) On September’s perfect morning, blue as veins beneath the skin,Routine and radio static—coffee, coins, and taxi din—A city moving, unaware the sky was poised to split,Where towers caught the sunlight, then surrendered piece by bit.A sound like every nightmare bred from metal, glass, and bone,An avalanche of paper—burnt