every hollow of the world

poetry
  after the police report, i walked home over frost-killed camellia blooms, thick and meaty underfoot like severed red hands. this isn’t a story about all that. i’m thinking instead…

from “Chalino Sánchez: A Sequence”

poetry
  [new thorns, 2020]   Pull the thorns from this borderline ’til barbed wire runs smooth against a palm, ’til coils of concertina fold back inside the accordion with a…

from “Chalino Sánchez: A Sequence”

poetry
  [one for adán]   What ridiculous luck to even be born. What ridiculous luck, living long enough to sing how your father was murdered by false policemen. What ridiculous…

I Inherit an Apron

poetry
  Ninety-three years old, stains on either side exactly where it would have covered her hips, as if on the last day, she was making bread, staring out the window,…

Pressure

poetry
  “Breastfeeding is a culturally and psychically fraught practice.” —Jennifer Friedlander, Subjectivity   We cry over spilled milk, yell shit at the elbow bump that puddles the pumped sweet gold…

Why I Learned to Do Drugs Responsibly

poetry
  Because waking up in the hospital, handcuffed to the bed, charcoal staining my teeth, my face blue with death, was no fun. Because dressing up as a woman, learning…

agnosia

poetry
  a ghost came to me once a specter shrouded in fog and stared at me through sunken mounds, lifeless caverns hollow like clay caved in by thumbs I don’t…

Miami

poetry
  Not the sense of standing alone in front of a microphone, but the adjustments of playing along with a more experienced band. Not the fear of representing an establishment,…

Love Poem With a Roll on Its Side

poetry
  What if you really had never heard it before? The throaty voice, the credibility And strength of a man who could always pick you up And bring you to…

63 Skylark

poetry
  RPM’s throat anger over highway one. Windows cracked seals let in hiss and shiver. Nod your head to exhausts gargle with rhythm like it is song