Poems
“I read the line over and over / as if I might discern / the little fires set / the flames of an idea licking the page”
“Illumination,” Natasha Trethewey
Request Radio, Saturday Night
After a two-pitcher Sangria dinner after three days tarring the biggest roof in Travelers Rest, he’s waiting for Darlene who’s been under that roof for twenty minutes, getting the guilt-free frozen dessert they’ll eat at her place. He’s hoping she’ll surprise him but...
Tractor Ghosts & Whittling Lessons from an Absentee Father
Tractor Ghosts Grandfather, I am driving your memory back to the shed. Your tractor’s power steering is shot, and navigation demands a farmer’s muscle to raise specter-gray clouds of soil. Diesel smoke stays in this baggy work shirt, and it triggers your lessons:...
Warp & Weft: Surrender Betsy, Ms. Ross
Warp & Weft: Surrender Betsy, Ms. Ross Deep winter. Quiet at its lowest frequency. You are founding a religion with your rage. Rage threads the needle, rage snaps the thread, rage unspools your patriotic intentions. You are knitting beneath bald trees with their...
“The Classroom,” “Gettysburg” & “The Emptiness of Evening”
The Classroom I talk about peace, love, and understanding with the college students taking classes between work shifts and day care and paying the rent. They teach me what resting bitch face means and what it looks like and how to accurately use phrases from current...
“Even Though We’re No Longer Together,” “Future Fate” & “Tomato”
Even Though We’re No Longer Together I still calculate the time difference, still do the backward math to determine if you’re awake, if you’ve read my text, if you’re at work or at the gym. I still remember the solid weight of you in my bed, the way you reached for me...
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