Poems

Come Home WholeShe pressed her palms against my chest before the taxi came around,said she wanted to feel my heartbeat so she would know the solid sound,she did not ask about the mission and she did not ask the odds,she just held on to the rhythm like a woman holds to God. I said I […]

Come Over Two words on the screen at eleven at night,Blue glow of the phone and my blood running bright,Come over, she typed, and the period at the end,Hit harder than anything a full paragraph could send I am already pulling on my boots before the second thought,Already checking mirrors, already overwrought,With the anticipation of

Clear Report The paper came back on a Thursday afternoon,the numbers clean, the margins holding, the whole columnof evidence arranged against the dark hypothesisand finding it absent, finding the worst of ithad closed, had sealed, had left no forwarding address –I read it twice before my hands could processwhat my eyes were giving them, the

Closing Time at the Buffet The buffet closes at nine and it’s eight-forty-three,the manager’s doing his rounds and looking at me,with the polite but pointed face of a man who knows,that I’ve been here since six and the evening shows,no sign of concluding from my specific booth,the plates stacked and the evening’s honest truth,is that

Champagne, Gasoline, and Her She rolled up in a borrowed Benz, lipstick smeared like warpaintTold the valet “don’t crash it”—he looked like he might faintBottle in one hand, man in the other, heels stabbing the floorShe looked like trouble that sued you after and came back for morebathroom stall blowjob, coke on the sink, three

Clean EnoughThe dishes are clean enough.The counter’s been addressed at the perimeter.The visible passes any reasonable casual inspector. But there’s an entire interior economy behind the fridgeand in the corners I haven’t opened for discussionwith the vacuum or the owners. I ran a cloth along the surfacewith the side of my forearm in the interestof

Champagne and Chlamydia She had lips like sin and a purse full of pills,said, “Daddy’s rich, but I like poor boy thrillsWore a dress like a napkin and heels that killed,lit her cigarette with unpaid billsTook me back to her motel lair, said,“We don’t need names, just sweat in the air”She rode me like a

Cathedral of RageI wake up burning and the sheets are ash around my body,another day fed to the furnace of what I can’t forgive. Rage is the only prayer I know by heart anymore—the liturgy of fuck you sung in perfect pitch. She says I’m beautiful when I’m angryand I think she means dangerous,a lit

CTRL + Fear (RBH)They spoon-feed terror with every morning scroll,fingers smudge glass while newsreels unroll—every headline calibrated to spike a pulse,veins flooded with death tolls, urgency convulsed. Click here for panic. Click to cry.Skip to the next. Never question whythe faces disappear, names lost to the feed,mourning performed, then buried in speed. Terror is binge-worthy,

Cable Package The cable package is two hundred and twelve a month,Which includes the hundred and eighty-seven channels, the bruntOf which I’ve never visited, including several dedicatedTo weather in a region I’m not in and the fatedChannels for people learning jewelry craft and for the auctionOf rare coins and for seventeen flavors of instructionIn the