Love Poem for the Neoliberal Age

I don’t want to be radicalized by terror.
I want to feed mourning doves
from the palm of my hand in spite of it.

Mud and Lotus

Reading passages in the back seat
in a parking lot
after dark.

objective truths??? objective truths.

like any fable your story
begins with a cup of soup
signifying goodness. positivity. as in:
the audience is prepared
for an unhappy ending.

Accidental Summoning, Paris Metro

before I was told the unspoken rule
about not looking people in the eyes,
you were there on the bench at Oberkampf

Self-Care Saturday

My knowing-better loops elbows
with fuck-it-I-don’t-care
& we choose a linen dress
that shows the silhouette of our ass

Help Wanted

Can you help me find somebody to help me?
Somebody to love? Somebody to fix
a sink who won’t overcharge me? Enlarge
me? Make love to me as if waxing a car?

Two Poems

"Diorama of A Life I Never Lived"
"How I Got Rid of My Mississippi Accent"

Spirits and Divine Forces

I’ve got the God-eye and shit,
he said in his ashwagandha t-shirt.

The Fig Tree

We have figs this year
leading up to the weeks of your passing.

All my life, I knew trees that were barren,
ever since you planted them.

Three Poems

“I Am Composing a Song”
”Incompatible”
”That Ancient Village”

Clearing out My Mother’s Home

The bowl perfectly new
in a cupboard full of things unused,
bought in anticipation
of a grandchild never delivered

Art

that’s one of the things it does
makes you think one thing

that leads to another thing
and soon the meadow is full

While You Were Away

and sometimes I got cozy in a cold shower, afraid
of the air outside waiting to wrap around wet skin. And after,
I’d leave the lights on each night. You weren’t home,

and I would think, safe is a pretty term, a feeling to dream.

She Has Notifications Silenced

One purple crescent
sent into sky
where my blue cloud
wafts above, alone,
aware it’s been seen
yet lingers to be heard.

Ode to Boy in Nightclub

All I want is to keep you,
but you are still on the dance floor
and New York City feels like coming down.

An ephemeral march between

pitch black

and too much morning.

Boardwalk Soda Fountain Shop

I watched as you’d extend a palm beneath
A ripe banana, tenderly, as if
To ask permission. Or you’d let me tuck
Wildflowers into cleavage held aloft,
Slick, sweaty, suntan oiled, flecked with sand crumbs.

Raised by Wolves

I shiver, understand as always
my teeth rotted and dull.
Even my father, that son of a bitch,
kept his bite until the end.
I was always ignored
last to marrow
flitching bits from
other’s old kills.

After the Relapse

I will never know the zaftig bosom of a mother during a fever, incessant nag, the body swap, the unconditional love. We both lacked what we both lacked—both pulled into a whirlpool, a tornado, while everyone stood by and laughed or rubbernecked. Up ahead the cars will slow down for an accident. The firetruck, coppers, tow truck will spin lights. Perhaps help is only a call away.

French Impressionists

I’ll plunge into the Loing or the Seine itself,
into ultramarine and cobalt blue
I’ll wade into the waters of Giverny,
lie amongst the water lilies
madder red and cadmium yellow against emerald,
violet waters

No Reason to Get Up but Get Up

hallowed and hollowed, richly bred for pain—
Anne and Sylvia shared a New York taxi in the rain,
discussed therapy and where they’d left their latest
lipstick stains.