As I walk through the street, I see a town that used to be vibrant with life from outside my body

Bare bones of storefronts jutting out, covered by graffiti

People displaced by greed

Trash blowing in the wild like tumbleweeds

The infrastructure is beautiful

But the life is long gone

It can’t be our fault

It’s just how it goes

Bystanders to violence aren’t at fault, right?

My steps fall heavy on the dirty concrete

As I watch the scenery change

Less trash

Less mess

More pristine

More order

The heaviness leaves me

I feel hollow, but I’m lighter

My grief fades from my mind as I slip right back into normal life

Right back to where I’m supposed to be

Leaving the ghost town behind me and stepping back into what I know

Where I’m comfortable

Yet, I feel the eyes of the people who once lived there watch me

Their children robbed of the lives they could’ve lived

With every step I take, my feet are held up by the eyes’ corpses

My advantage passed down to me

Is the same advantage that was stolen from them

Do you think of me, as I think of you?

Rain drenched and running for shelter
Bar hopping all afternoon
Anticipation building for the moments of bliss you’ve promised me.

The perilous climb to the upper floor
Perched atop the infamous nightclub
And how we laughed at the absurdity of it all.

Pupils blown wide watching the sun set over the city
Music thumping gently beneath our shared breath
Bathed in smoke and sweat and summer haze.

Picturesque as a movie scene crafted by some divine director
Bringing us together

Only to say goodbye

Near the creek behind my grandmothers house
a long-lost version of me plucks berries from a vine.
I squish the pods between my finger and thumb.
Popping the pebble fruit from its delicate skin.
I bring it to my mouth to taste in secrecy.
I crouch to pick up the summer shed of a Copperhead.
Dark juice splattered on my tee shirt,
a stain Mama can’t rub clean.

Yucca stalks thrust up
hard & phallic from the ground
& then remember 
their true nature, sprouting blooms 
like handbells ready to ring. 

Lake Michigan’s shore, summer
after eighth grade, we walk

out of spindly legs
into widening hips, enter

a new age — bodies strange,
slightly dangerous,

cross paths with some boys, couple
years older, muscles

like grown men or lions
who might pounce.

They cruise by on bikes,
feast their eyes on us.

Later, the ringleader,
shaggy mane, electric

blue gaze, calls out
to us from the water,

Come on, don’t you want
to swim deeper?

We giggle and decline,
but it’s the last time

not one of us will dare
dip a toe.

Our life together:
planning dinner,
memorizing the route
between our kid’s school
and therapy,
trips to the pet store
for designer dog food,
buying new underwear,
tossing out the old.

Don’t get me wrong,
what we have —
roof overhead, brass in pocket,
thirty day moon —
is good, in the way
a nosebleed
is an indicator
you’re still among the living,

but

I long for the firm knock
against ribcage
of the lover wanting in.

*George Herbert

potentialities lie dormant in all of us
maybe this is a course in nature that doesn’t need correcting
no scratching away at  as if it not evident without effort
assuage this loss of capacity for self-renewal  we can stop that nonsense 
cloaked in anxiety  co-oped as trauma
we don’t know this prison until we’ve broken out
perhaps let life unfold  maybe huh 
Aquarius season  Pluto shifts gears 
live this way  stability in motion
bring change into line with purpose  oh humans
I believe in you

mistakes fill my lungs 
as I cough 

I take thick and regretfilled breaths 
I grip my chest 
They ask me if I’m having fun yet 
if I’m happy
if it’s kicked in

I don’t answer 
not yet 
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say

Crumples in an interstate hotel 
meeting room after declaring
that green infrastructure
is spray painted steel faking
it til it makes it.  

Heads nodding,
several city officers declare
the site a scenic easement.
A solemn brown road sign is ordered,
because a rock fence would be over-budget.  

Small area plans for tiny minds
with a fleeing deer mentality sprung
between the asphalt ribbons.
Munching on milkweed and dodging trucks
they codify 128k acres as rural greenspace
and think it means freedom.  

Infill becomes our haunt.
We are mice in the superstructure,
ghosts in the shells of steel & cracked concrete,
spirits in the blackened window
of progress and commerce.