Poetry

Bare skin now cold with the new season
Yet clear skies melt red into the horizon,|
I skip over the now crunching leaves as
Fields of orange flowers wave to me as
The wind catches my hair, and I celebrate.

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Do not fear the quilt of night
as it befalls the cot of day -
the hues may be of a different palette,
but light still finds them
sent only by the sun’s dearest companion.
Though the sun doth leave,
the moon bequeath it wholeheartedly.

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dear XXXXXX,

have you ever seen a brushfire
burning hellishly across the horizon and
wondered if it was your cigarette
butt, tossed to the roadside that
became the coal in the dark,
lighting the first low-lying weeds?

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For all the toys that never got to see the States,

The first thing       I remember loving         –         you,
who taught me I      was more           than just myself.

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Every summer,
I measure the dwindling length of the island, with
worried footprints in damp sand, count
turtle nests garnished with yellow caution tape, see
the shadow of my grandmother’s ghost in every tide pool.

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A voice came from the quick of my teeth.
It said— Wer schützen sie?
My teeth tasted of metal,
they burned and cracked wie ein Geschoss.

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Iranian music makes me feel sick.
The way death draws air from the parts of your body
you did not know breathed.
I am fully aching, in the moment
my grandma lifts me in her arms

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the first time i met them
was on some street corner
next to a crosswalk sign counting down from infinity.
there are things that i will never reach,
that i will never have the poems to understand.

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i’ve been asked about love
asked if she’s ever been at my heart…
waiting at the door, hands full of white
roses ready to turn embarrassment and ‘i can’t

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we tell the desk clerk we’re here
(& early this time) for our appointment
to refinance our father’s salvation. We’ve paid
rivers worth of interest on the mortgage
already, Aidan and I even rehearsed our proof
in the truck’s backseat: our father’s credit

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I don’t always come into work or class with a new ‘do,    
but when I do, I always feel like some exotic pet. 
Co-workers, classmates and company flock  
to me like starved seagulls to soggy, salty fries, hands  
itchin’, fingers twitchin’, questions pitchin’ at me— 
“Can I touch your hair?” “Is that a weaves?” “Do you wash it?”

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flirting in the closet. stop. someone pulling away threads —

advertisements for museums,                   closed,
                              but not locked.
it’s a window. untitled, 1992. oil on canvas?
               no, just a reflection.

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