Sanctuary

Not enough of us in that neighborhood

to make teams, but we had two patches

of woods straddling the road that led

maybe a quarter-mile from our corner

to the drive-in. Only a few acres, but enough

for a world of exploration. Unlike our own neat

yards, with careful trees and well-tended

aromatic roses. No one tended the woods.

If my father wanted firewood,

I could lead him to the windfalls.

Otherwise, none of the adults ventured

into our woods. Mostly the place was abandoned

except for me and maybe another kid,

never more than three of us,

poking around in the familiar wild.

The boggy smells, some fallen trees, wild blackberry canes,

and the remains of old kid-projects that might have been

meant as forts, or clubhouses, but forgotten

by some earlier generation of explorers, or by us.

Cars whizzing by on the raised highway, on the edge

of what we could choose not to hear.

Now the road passes a sports complex

on the way to extended parking for the shopping mall.

Our woods have vanished, from the Parkway

to where the drive-in was, familiar to

memory and imagination,

respite from the neat imagined lives

of our parents.

First published in Peacock Review.

Song for Cassiopea

for Kaden, marine biologist

---

As a child, you were nothing but stalk—

polyp form emerging, latching

onto nearby structures, your body

neither male nor female, still

you create your clones, proliferate

in mangrove swamps—

too warm for many, too polluted—

you are easy in that way.

Leaving polyp form, you are medusa,

telltale bell and arms but no platonic ideal, 

moons backlit in aquaria.

Among your jelly peers,

you seem confused, pulsating 

upside down, elaborate tendril arms

forever seeking.

Swimmers who know are not afraid.

Your sting is mild—not like the man o’ war,

but you hold a secret. Under stress,

you will release your stinging cells, tiny bombs

awaiting prey, distant from your rococo arms 

pretending to be coral.

My child, future scientist, picked you of all creatures

to examine. After navigating stinging waters of school, 

carrying a body mischosen by fate. Unloveable jellies—

bane of bathers, enemy of engineers, useless 

nuisance, beauty of the deep.

Now, this child, transitioned,

buries himself in science, studies

how you protect yourself,

disappearing so easily—

thinner than a contact lens.

I see you stretching back into Cambrian fossils,

doing the hard work of evolution, organizing cells 

into your chosen bodies, accomplishing 

miraculous survival.

Of the Macho

Mi hermano says he can’t change flat tires on his bicycle

anymore. His wrists too weak, can’t leverage the tire’s bead over

the rim. In high school he was the State all-around gymnastics

champion. His body flying over bars and mats.

A no ignition Johnny Blaze.

Now he places a white plastic lawn chair

in his shower. Safer, if you sit.

One summer afternoon when we were unchecked

college students, our lifeguard friend unlocked

the diving bay at the local public pool for

our romanticized athletic desires.

We bounced on the high dive, happy after some beers,

sending each other into the atmosphere.

Admiring our splashes

that exploded over the wall. Our friend

shaking her head,

our horsing around a real danger,

she claimed. And maybe,

because we both wanted to kiss her, we dared

each other in a contest of the macho. Who could

leap off the high dive board and come

closest the pool’s edge on the opposite side.

The entire pool in the shade of the early evening now, and

he launched first. His entire body embracing

the wilderness moment. A leap of redemption,

of joy, of middle-class boredom,

because they never let you howl. He landed like a perfect

arrow, un clavo, en punto, feet first, a daring splash two feet

from the edge. I swam over to him, and told him he was

crazy. He was the winner. No question, no contest.

I climbed out and watched him

glide through the water to the other wall.

He pulled his body out of the pool, the water

released him to the air. A wind of calm rushing over

the surface. The water returning to glass.

First published in Gigantic Sequins, June 2020.

Itemized Checks

There’s a coyote’s skull at Hurricane Creek / there’s a new table in your section / your life, sectioned / an hour of each day in each canine eyeball / a new set of fangs / sun-bleached / the customers / sun-bleached / coyote could run but eight hundred miles / four highways / alley smoke break / cool-running river for paws to dip / don’t stop a ruptured lung / internal wounds / essential / contained / your stress / contained / paws hit stone & entrees hit table / & you’re still moving / & you haven’t hiked in months / & breath still comes / shallowing / tumbling / a fall forward / gravity’s grace / you wonder, what kills a coyote? / you wonder, will you always be only passing through? / there’s a high turnover at this restaurant / there’s a copperhead in the water / biding time / binding time to the instant of / strike / sink / release / breathe in / release / if you call out, will they fire you? / if you die somewhere, is it finally Home?

decant desperation

there are no words for
a mother in mourning
her cries are
swans’ calls
seeking swift shelter
no bonfire can warm her
she floats,
aimlessly
as wayward winds transpire
to annex all that is stainless,
and wide-eyed
and safe
we sully each strand of sureness
delegating those who wish
to wield walls
of lax laws
as paragons of purview
whilst those who hold tender
the prospects of purpose
the benign benefactors
vying for vicious venom
of the ravenous rabble
are swayed into
submission
as if one could
defeat despair
why must we wield wounds
as weapons?

The Boys of Kenneth Street

We played mumbletypeg with jackknives.
We stole Playboys from the first 7/11.
We played corkball and kickball
and football in the street. Cars
interrupting a game were given a
raspberry. We weren’t really hoodlums—
we were too timorous—but we liked
the new rock music and, given the chance,
we snarled like Mick Jagger. Kenneth
Street was base and our peregrinations
took us to the drugstore or the woods.
We strutted and talked about girls as if
we knew the secret thing. Our world
spun only one way. The 60s passed and
we moved around more. The connection
remained. I still count on these boys,
who taught me nascent masculinity,
and what the world was like beyond our
neighborhood. Those times we ran
together, so long ago now, took place in
an America that is gone. Gone too
our innocence. And the need, which burned in
us like holy fire, to be more than what we were.

EXCEPT YOU

What gets archived
a song in November
a psalm in the fields
chants around a fire?

Wearing their good shoes
huddled up the earth is heated
and scraped off the next morning.

Nobody will remember
except you
who swept the floor
and kept love.

shyness can stop you

this little silver instamatic camera shoots panoramas.
fits in your pocket, if there's no chewing gum or keys in there. it’s no
picturesque paul simon kodachrome.
more like a drugstore analog fix, but in-disposable.
she's reliable—she's well-traveled—she's seen the empire state, all
over the east coast.
she's had redondo to san pedro in her sights, too.
no, she's not fancy, she doesn't have flash, yet she lets me see the
world through 5 x 6 matte, avec sloppy borders.
she's visited thousands of unique daffodil faces.
some in-focus, others blurry, caught in a distorted blizzard dream.

one face i wish she got a better look at:
a nameless piano player near the sunnyside playground. he was
magnificent: his own skyscraper, his own ocean: an eighth wonder.
no frills, no tourist traps, pure & free.
a spotlight shone on him and him only, casting every pair of
untrained eyes and ears into blackness.
i hoped for some discreet profile of his sweaty, barechested,
maestro frame, jerry lee lewis-ing, leon russell-ing his way into my
celluloid memories.
so humble yet so good—fingers and sensibility unencumbered. i wanted to
go up and ask him if he could be my sierra nevada, if he could be my
superstar.
instead, i took a hazy, distant snapclick from the steadfast
streetcorner.

shy, introverted, bashful cole just didn't have it in him.
though, i know she did.
there was a sentry blocking those palace gates.
a detached receiver in that telephone booth.
then: the most intimate question.
now: my devastation, my missed shot.
he might’ve even been flattered, chuffed, pleased at the proposition.
instant regret filled my fluttering, i didn’t catch the 10:05 bus,
conflicted, crushed, anxious thundercloud torso, now squeezed tight in the
station between my toes and my socks.
a falling, stillborn feeling.
a stomach dropping out of its highwire act.
above all, the real misfortune was felt by my pintsized photographe. her blank,
idle 35mm film only gets old, languishes, and expires.

Unarbitrary Definition for The New Concise Modern Dictionary of Synchromysticism

because · /bɪˈkɒz/ · conjunction. 1. Because the limited, dual nature of the human mind necessitates the illusion of cause and effect. 2. Because all things connected must be understood conjoined, conjoined and ever changing. 3. Because the wings of butterflies cause hurricanes. 4. Because A must equal B, & B must equal C; A must also equal C; so you were wrong, Siddhartha: to eliminate desire is to eliminate all life. 5. Because I need you like the island needs the ocean, deluded in the isolated joys of boundary. 6. Because Time is Space & Space is Time, and both constructions of the bodies (see also: celestial, solar, heavenly, physical, and divine). 7. Because we conceive of Incarnations, conceived in concepts from the moment of conception. 8. Because we ask the question, “Why?” 9. Because the Postmodern has fallen upon us; and the Continental Philosophers all were French; and the French have always had it written in their language: the answer to pourquoi? is just pourquoi. 10. Because we always need a reason. 11. Because explanations make us feel profound. 12. Because I held you, I will someday lose you. 13. Because we love, we all will suffer. 14. Because we all do suffer, we must love.