Poems

Death Wears Your Mothers FaceDeath Wears Your Mother’s Face It wasn’t dramatic. That’s the partno mythology prepares you for,no pamphlet they hand youin the hospital hallway on a Tuesday. It was a Tuesday.Death prefers the unremarkable —the day nobody circles,the one without a name worth saving. She was eating toast.The marmalade brand she’d boughtsince before […]

Dark Joke in a Dark Room The wake—his brother standing in the kitchenand me leaning close with the stitchingof the joke he would have appreciated,the dark bit, the calibratedwrong-time punchline for the right-time room,and his brother laughed in the gloomof the kitchen of the dead man’s house—and we were both alive. The loudspeaker. Dark joke

Dead Air—The Year The World Forgot To Breathe (Covid-19 Pandemic, 2020– ) A city isn’t supposed to echo like an abandoned cathedral,every footstep swallowed by sirens or the hiss of empty streets, We learned the language of panic—blue gloves, shuttered windows,masked faces passing by with eyes that never meet, Shops boarded like teeth punched out

Daddy’s Back from VegasHe came through the screen door at a forward lean with someone else’s fragrance on his throat,Said he hit the jackpot and then listed what the jackpot cost at length to note,Mom was horizontal on the sofa with her own ongoing pharmaceutical project,And I was thirteen, operating a crash course in what

Daddy’s PoisonHe kept a flask in the side table drawer and a belt on the hook beside the doorPreached about sin with bourbon breath, dragged me through his brand of penance and deathMa left the house when I was small with nothing but her shoes and her resolveLeft me to wrestle the devil in a

Cryptkeeper’s Day Job Punches in with a shovel and a groan, clocking time in a maggot suitGot a title tag stitched on bones and a thermos full of unmarked fruitHe files the dead by personality type—narcissists on aisle threePuts the creeps in customer service and grins while he sips his teaMonday’s a skull-polish special, Tuesday’s

Couch Archaeology Found a receipt from three years back between the cushions,which raises some important and archaeological conclusionsabout the sediment of time and how it layers in the couch —the stratigraphy of not caring is a scientific grouch. Down below the receipt there’s a pen that stopped working in 2021,which was the year I also

Crawlspace Birthday I was five when I found the crawlspace partyBehind the furnace, past the pipesA circle of small chairsAround a table set for guests Paper plates and paper cupsParty hats and noisemakersA birthday cake with no candlesAnd a banner that said my full designation Not a surprise party, nobody was hidingThe chairs were empty

Comedy Is Not a Defense I used comedy as a defense for most of my adult years,deployed it as a shield between the feelings and the fears,made a joke before the moment could become too real,and kept the comedy between me and what I’d have to feel. Comedy is not a defense, as I eventually

Comedy at the Funeral I did the eulogy and I did it as a bit, more or less,my uncle would have wanted nothing less than full-on comedic address,he was a man who laughed at everything including his own decline,and he left instructions that the service should be entirely fine. I opened with his worst joke,