Sunday daydream

As a child, I’d sit in church
and imagine gravity reversing,
wondering if I’d unhook my chair

in time to cushion the fall
as I plunged upwards
into steel scaffolding.

The sermon would fade
while I imagined a chasm
tearing open between my feet

or imagined drowning in black
shingles as the roof collapsed
and gave us our eternity early.

My eyes glazed and I dreamt
whether I was brave enough
to escape those disasters,

or brave enough to simply stand
and walk out on my parents,
still rapt and reverent.

But each of those young visions
felt equally impossible
until I was a little older.

A man

A man on the bus asked, “why do
you cross your legs like that?” and I said
it was more comfortable.

“Because it’s more comfortable!”
he parroted and laughed,
slumping over in his happy victory.

Mezcal

Mezcal smarts
like eyes open
in a chlorine pool,
but when I open them
they are clear
and my tongue
is alive in
Mexico.

Confirmation

Confirming to the state of Washington
‘this marriage is irretrievably broken’,
requires one check mark
on Page 1 of Form 201.

The judge will ask once more
at the hearing to record a verbal ‘yes’.
And with this final participation, 
the judiciary undoes the clergy.

Citrus

The citrus of our early love
soured a thousand liquor pours.
A shaky toast to hot, wet throats
and postponement of the war.

A common pause, a thread is lost,
I dehydrate in my car.
A warning friend, “It’s him again,
just leave him on the floor.”

Morning broke all morning
until I was broken too.
In the chaos of that party
I had only heard the room.

A signature in black, at last,
completes the crowded page.
As long as I can remember
the shape of my last name.

The bitters

The bitters in my old fashioned
are cassia and cinchona bark,
orange peel and gentiana petals.

Two decades of growth
before flora became aroma,
aging to a black liqueur
like a concentration of pain.

Two dashes of Angostura
season my rye while I age
and concentrate and bitter.

Her voice draped

Her voice draped from red lips
to a gold beer can,
then pooled in the corner
among velour couch cushions.

The speakers set quiet for a breath
before the house vibrated again
at the frequency of my intoxication.

A young, electric harmony began.
“I don’t know what I want to study,
but I love light in every form.”

Gentlemen of the road

The heat grew around us
as my body pressed to yours
and twelve more at our sides.

The bass shook us together,
rippling over our heads
into the hot and drunk and high.

The song, once a comfort,
now madness in that pulse
and chaos in my mind.

The tightness a vacuum
for my breath and I gasped
for the dirty summer air.

So I turned against the sea
to edge my way out, and you
were pressed to someone new.

The night’s rapture of faces
and beer and guitar charged again
as I lay on the grass.

The crowd passed and gave
heat to the sidewalk, at last,
and I waited there for you.

The silence came first
and the cold followed,
but you had gone with the rest.

So I found the tent
and waited for you to come—
hot and drunk and high

We kept our plans

We kept our plans for the week
when the weather held out
we spent the night together
when we found a reason to leave the house

The moon was young that month
as it waned and preached to us
The wind was stronger than my car
spun in eighteen wheel Volvo dust

I'll fight till the solstice
to hear you and the finches sing
and I hope the neighbors hear us
break everything.

We're still alive but it's daytime
we're still hopeful but stoplights
broke up the old drag line.

We never wanted our sore throat
days to be illuminated,
we were cold and angry
drunk and sedated.

We found torment
on the faces of our friends
when working the dead-end
came to only half the rent.

We broke from the greening block
as redbuds and bridesmaids
and our empty houses talk.

30 Seconds

For thirty seconds, my shutter opened
to flashlight paint and river snow.

Frost tautened my shoulders
and our laughs clouded the air.

We protected ears and hands
like our molecules were miracles.

We folded useless hand warmers
in our palms and huddled to the cars.

The February night fractured in half
and now my stomach ruins me

when you come to mind
and I warm myself in the kitchen.