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Recent work


Much of my recent work was written during a time of displacement and extreme change, set against a backdrop of profound uncertainty and loss. These poems feel like notes that survived intact from encounters with calamity — messages carried through by a tornado, the finger of God. 

They are fragments of something larger I’m still learning how to name.


Collected poems 
from 2018 – 2023
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Seethe



grass rooms
in a head of down

flowers evanesce
gloaming underair

miscanthus, goldenrod and thistle
florid and wordless, forbidden

so much can turn
in a season

a summer can burn curtains
a broach can emerge
from a sundress

what we will destroy
we once avoided
we seethe
so that we may luminesce




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SALVAGER



Amphorae cracked in the remains
Of a ship wrecked by storms 
You who hold this molten gold 
You who paid in time elapsed 
Sever the paths that lead us astray
Guide us through dark waters 
To safe harbor, when we meet 
Let your eyes be like a beacon
And your touch like finding shore
Embrace all of those who are lost 
For in our failures we unfold 
And in each death we are reborn




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A RIVER IN THE ANIMAL IS DAMNED 



Robots float like parade balloons

above the summer cityscape

fire rains down from their red eyes

I descend on a rope from the sky

there is a room I rent

in a hoarder’s home

by the wharf

in this coastal city

the sirens peel an evacuation

the ocean takes a deep breath

my briefcase is a dark room

where blank pages develop

words

I say to the figurine

it’s been so long since I’ve been home 
I'm afraid I've lost the keys




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ROPE OF SMOKE



I want to kiss you
into words
I want to speak your song
into breath
I want our fields to merge
Like light passing
through overlapping screens

I want our aloneness
To be vibrant and full
Of possibility
When our boundaries are set
I want to feel the release
Of our inner meaning

If the frequency of our ardor
Cannot be surpassed
by our chance encounter
I want all labels burned
And interred outside
This timeless moment
To lay in the glow of feeling
Like some sun or satellite
On its fateful ambit




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POLARIS 



We were clouds
who parachute
From stars to dirt
I held you all night
Wrapped in blue light 

Who has taken your voice?
Who will give it back?
North star 
I can’t unwrap
Your brilliant mystery

If I were a bird I’d sing a key
to unwind divided lives
My wren, my dark canary

Can you forgive
A star for falling?
Is a father’s love
not worth knowing?

Is the night sky
An unknowable mind?
Can our love unravel
Your brilliant mystery?