I was young
& confused
lust & love
& now 30
years later
here we are
four kids
a mortgage
two old cars
schlepped
in the garage
a dead cat
& damn
if it doesn’t
feel like home
but christ
could I use
a cigarette
2022-07-20
I walked across
the mud-soaked field
like a train sound
was underneath me
wildflowers bent
& turned in circles
the sun turned
black smoke rising
& then there was Anne
& her chainsaw
& strewn bluebonnets
& she said
sure beats a scythe
& yes it does
but isn’t that
Texas for you
2022-06-28
So Jimmy says
Hey
man
why
you
hey
what’s
with
stop
hey
So says Jimmy
2022-06-07
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Great news!
You may qualify to
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We’re sorry we didn’t touch base with
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and
We’re sorry we didn’t touch base with
Your $25,0000 settlement check.
I unlocked my private
Background-check on you.
You have been paid!
Check your account!
Your $25,0000 settlement check
Caught his wife riding a
$750.00 Amazon gift card
Exposed to Roundup®.
Please confirm receipt!
You got some good news!
I unlocked my private
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Your $25,000 settlement check.
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Hello, nice to meet you!
Do you believe in real love?
2022-03-18
thinned from years
of smoke & drink
& now the stroke
my father died in
hospital shitting
the bed but not
his bed & isn’t
that just like him
marking territory
until the end
2022-03-17
my mother
died before
she saw this
day a sixty-
sixth time,
the cancer
seeping into
her bones
she thought
only back-
aches &
her cells
eating away
her cells
too much,
too every-
where to
do more
than accept
the inevitable
& hospice
& then
my sister
watched her
thin &
two weeks
later when
my mother
left she
went quiet
in the night,
no rage
against the
dying light,
one moment
there & the
next round
gone, nurses
plying midnight
floors while
our old
friend death
waltzed in;
I like to
think her
father held
the door
2022-03-09
they came down the street
to the wailing child & the
flashing lights, the hospital
shrugging the curb, a pile
of steel & cinders & dust
& the sky a ragged wound
beneath the screaming
jets & the mothers round
with agony & meanwhile
the madman in his bunker
shoves tin soldiers across
the table demanding the
map play by his rules