You inhabit me fully
like the late August sun
when it soaked us both—
clothes and skin,
grass and iron,
drenched in orange.
You gave me the shine
from your cheeks
while our breath met
in salt and sweat
and I held your scent
in my lungs.
American Spirit,
lavender, and your
warm, wet sweetness.
You gave me your yellow sunglasses as collateral,
a promise I would see you at least once more.
The frames, oblong and comical on any face except yours
with lenses that give only a hint of shade.
They are with me now
on my new continent across the Atlantic.
You did not honor the promise, so I keep them
half in spite, half in hope.
Mezcal smarts
like eyes open
in a chlorine pool,
but when I open them
they are clear
and my tongue
is alive in
Mexico.
Half a bottle of wine was not enough
but the whole bottle is too much.
How quickly we, the broken, forget
our friends’ love, while the narrative of heartbreak
hardens into a truth we can accept.
Eyes shut to sunlight and saltwater
in the Sound, the pine green disappeared
with the lines of a woman’s face.
Half the night alone was not enough
but the whole night is too much.
Let internalization end today,
let compassion return to my arms
so I can help my brothers.
The blindness is temporary
as color returns with force.
Gold morning, red afternoon, blue night.
Half a mind and heart is not enough
but I cannot offer more.
The kindest thing ever said to me was,
”You don’t turn into a bad person
when you’re drunk.”
I laughed and said thank you.
”No, seriously,
you taught me to waltz.”
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.
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.
I arc over Oregon,
my headlights burning an ion trail
into the saplings and old snow.
The diesel ran loud and its reverb hunted
the highway's stray grass.
I drifted for twenty-two hours
while the last six years
passed between yellow lines.
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 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.”