Gaunt and tall with a starveling face, he
wears a leather apron with an assortment

of hanging stars and sheathed blades,
a broadsword strapped across his back

as he walks, practicing the presence of the hilt.
He doesn’t need anyone to teach him

His creed is his cutlass, to create or to kill
He realizes all the experts were wrong

He turns his face to God, his knives flashing
like silver fish jumping hand to hand

If you’ll show me the truth, I’ll follow it
He is a priest now and he is flawed

He knows a class of people whose teeth 
devour the poor and needy from the earth 

He knows the grave, the barren womb,
and the leech are never satisfied

He knows steel brings heaven to earth
and the air is a fair gift for slicing

Eternity abides in him like a mirthful oil
taken up residence in his body, hallowed.

He is anointed, but not of the earth,
Look at me, he says. I’ve done nothing wrong.

This milkshake boogies as
the sun streams in. 

I’ve been trying to describe the clouds for a few nights – the
perfect mix of indigo and turquoise. 

If you’d have told me that grief can be a 
steeple in that sky, soul connections lite bounce happily
in; this summer when I can hold it
all in its pure, perfect dualism…I’m
a stylist for a wedding – 

well let’s just say your Five Guys milkshake would 
be life dancing too. 

a tiredness which brims from exhaustion
doing one’s best yet coming up short
     or it seems so, anyway
no one really knows the entirety
but it’s warm now, summer’s here
and I’d rather not accept what I don’t have to
I can choose
three words nearly as strong as “I love you”
truly just another way to say “I love
myself”

Jewel encrusted darling,

you just want to be loved. don’t you know that? you just want to be loved.

Heavenly father,
bless our harried commute and
forgive us our honks.

yesterday
you would have turned 31
but
they burst into your home
forgot
you were human
and
they never cared
(louisville streets still run red with your blood)

the cover
of the AARP magazine.

Raise your hands if you
belted out his lyrics with
crackling community pool speakers
or behind your bedroom door,
your hairbrush turning microphone.

In my mind, I’m a kid singing along,
just a ripped-jean, big-haired Gen Xer,
livin’ on a prayer, pledging
to be there for someone.

And though I’ll still perform it
like I’m auditioning for the band,
I won’t give love a bad name.
I won’t share mock-indignation
about the passage of time and
how life is spent in too-quick moments–

for we are still here, in food kitchens and schools,
streets alive with the melody of living
even amidst struggle’s cacophony.

There is beauty in endurance,
in honoring the worthiness of each soul.

We can celebrate that,
stick kindness on the cover.

Let’s never say goodbye
to the potential our one life offers.

I should want to do