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
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
————————————
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
————————————
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
————————————
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
————————————
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?