poetry

When my stack blows, my handwriting grows several points in all directions.

Letter Fs stand like middle fingers over the margins, enroute to the hard K.

Bloodless fingertips, white with pressure, making the nib scratch and the paper bleed.

My battle map rife with the chaotic crosshatched lines of civil war

Mixed

With sacrificial scribbles.

A cover hides the fiber-deep lacerations of fantasized ends.

Collateral damages stacked thigh-high in an oversized bin with a flapping lid slammed hard

And often.

An unkind font,

shouting uncouth words,

with underlying meanings

to underhanded people.

A lethal game of Tic Tac Toe, where the Xs stand victorious,

And the Os are

Overrun.

The pixelated display blinks:
$4.75 for unleaded.
There is no God in this economy.

Dank, iridescent curb water swirls around my naked ankles.
The dripping nozzle clatters home with a defiant click.

I cast a sideways glance at the total through rain-fogged lenses,
but find salvation within the bowels of a crumpled Ziploc.

A relic—red, white, and laced within the Lord’s prayer.
Folded one too many times.

The messiah in his transparent tomb.
Sealed away with no stone to roll.

And no air to breathe.

Stolen
from a ring of nibbled styrofoam.
The bottom laced with powdered sweetener
clumping at the surface,

enough to taste the cavities.

Both hands glued to the sticky wheel
of a sputtering golf cart.
That sweet brown brew
splashing
my gums like lava.

Jolted by shifting sidewalks,
I spill a muddy solar system
down the front of me.

The aroma hanging on my upper lip—
Folgers, Axe body spray, and exhaust.

Dad took it black before 8 a.m.,
marring the lip of a sepia-stained diner mug
with a generous portion of whiskers.

I felt like him that morning,
working on that
first sip—

my tongue curling,
my face twisting,

then not at all.

sparks

forever there beneath me
licking the cracked concrete walk

combustion

my husk melting to
circles of soot
amid the nicotine and pilsner

fuel

the sputtering ignition
of a gas-fed Bic

horns blaring
gravel scuffing
flagpoles rattling at the armory

old ladies gasping
applauding my combustion

teens war-whooping as i crackle
two-finger whistling
as i unravel

jacked-up tires screeching
red, white, and blue flames fading

but for a moment
my wings wider,
my light brighter

i flew

The morning sky burns
crimson;
yet the frigid ground
rebels.

From the driver’s seat the
world shakes;
a ridge of ice and slush,
courtesy of a city plow

I twist the key
and pray the rusty Ford
delivers.

The engine coughs,
then lets loose a metallic
howl.

The gritty feel
of grinding gears
beneath a salt-stained boot.

From the console, a bottle
of Motrin rattles;
nearly empty again.
And yet, our engines grind,
ragged breaths merging.

Within the wind-whipped
pines
the robins struggle,
blunting their beaks
against the frozen ground.

They bleed,
but endure.