A stone in your pocket is a wonderful treasure to find,
but feeling the same pebble in your shoe
can break your whole body down.
Buildings around us function in much the same way,
where removing a single block
dooms everything above it.
And the people who construct these spaces around us
infuse this same quality of arithmetic
in the prisons of our schedules.
One thing added or one thing removed
shatters the solidity
of a few placid day.
So I try to be a keystone for the people I know and love,
a wedge of silent fortitude
measured in exactitude.
Yet a wedge is, by definition, separate and different,
a space cut from another space,
set aside for another time,
during those times when we are up too early in the morning,
when you can see the slow electricity
moving through far-off lightbulbs.
I will be that stone still glowing in the pocket of your mind,
that stone still traveling up your spine with each step,
that stone still holding you together.
The words won’t fall in line tonight,
despite the herding I’m trying to do.
Sometimes words are harder than squirrels
or ducks or cats or my teenage students.
So I’ll just read some poems instead.
His shoulders curled under the weight of worries and internal wars,
he was sitting under the tree,
taking a break,
smoking a cigarette and drinking kahva.
Judging the appearance, you would never guess how spritely and youthful he once was.
His old blue jeans splattered with white paint
and his yellow sweater dotted with moth holes,
the dark circles that pulled his dark brown eyes down,
his hair was disheveled, and his hands were rough like sandpaper.
Indeed, it all made him look older than he was.
The world was not kind to him,
but despite the rough appearance,
to me, he always looked like love.
His name was Bosna,
my father and my mother,
my first home.
Problem.
i’m already running out of steam.
is that okay?
i’m sorry.
a life well lived has days
without hours to process
compost
compose
and produce
my best work,
bangers only.
i can’t live like that.
a 100% speedrun
no longer matches
my rest-focused approach.
Is there a way to do both?
Solution.
Flexibility.
What is a poem?
Two lines.
One line.
Thoughts.
Feelings.
Imagery.
Sentences.
Fragments.
Lists.
What is good enough?
Is it deep?
Is it funny?
Relatable?
Specific?
I don’t think I did my stretches today, either.
I tipped backwards off the side
of the boat, and entered the under-
sea world. After we descended
to depth, equalizing
as we sunk, we finned
along the reef. After the dive master
led us through a coral tunnel
into an open field of loose
Sargasso seaweed, invasives
shifting back & forth in counter-
point to the strong current.
After half a tank, the waves
turned into a churning belly,
the dive a fight to overcome
the urge to vomit, to clear my mask
of saltwater. After we passed the giant
lobster, parrot fish, and the poisoned
quills of the lionfish, the clang of metal
traveled as the master tapped his tank
to gain my attention. After I followed
his gesture to look up, I saw the shark
just above me. If I reached up, I could have
stroked its white belly, could have touched
its gray flank. Was I frightened?
a friend asked. Hypnotized by surf
and sashaying seaweed, distracted
by dwindling air, and the roar of each
breath, the shark was just another
creature beside me.
I was recently introduced
to garlic scapes
they’re the flower bud of the
Hardneck Garlic plant
see it’s a lesser known part of the plant
that can be used the same way
as garlic in any recipe
and then I said to myself,
in my kitchen
quietly
how fucking come nobody ever told me there was more to it
how did I live this long without
this essential survival knowledge
that will surely come in handy
when we have to forage for edible plants
on what’s left of the land that has gotten
Too Hot
for us to be out in for very long
well the ones who aren’t in the camps behind the fences
and not the others who we may never see again
the scape is a stem that they cut in June
to thicken the bulb of the plant
and it seems so fitting that
giving a piece of yourself
every single season
is an acceptable part of your life cycle
how come
I never knew
there was more
To This
that we could have been using
more of what we already had
but we probably just threw it out thinking it was trash
and now we’re too far removed from the land
from which we came to recognize
what it really is
something that we didn’t and don’t appreciate enough
something that we really don’t deserve
something that I am glad I now know
because I’m sitting by my crisper drawer,
in tears
realizing this stopped being about garlic scapes
a long time ago
The girl lost to hands that stripped her to safety.
All soulless she could be less of a danger to all,
force fed a silence, bloated on screams that curdled
through the hallways as children hid from the noise.
Shrieks still reflux up her throat a year after it ended.
There is no end to this. The IV scar folds in her inner arm.
She was prescribed empty rest. Resting became corrosive.
Even desperate doses of horse tranquilizers wouldn’t work,
just cycled a new drug trial through her, the side effects
were not sweet or relaxing. Stuck in four supervised hours
of hallucinations each week, she saw images of those hands
so brutish, dangling keys to locked doors. Now she alone
is the one to lock the doors. They will not open again.
