Johnny thought his job was fun
hits and blood and guts
funny banter with funny partners
all night pizzarias
twenty-four hour shifts
the power of coffee
a friendly rivalry with a friendly rival
an unfriendly rivalry with an unfriendly rival
always something
never boring
never time to think

Janie had to go underground
and no one’s wit was ever quite as quick
Sandry got old
and then he got slow
and he was the one that liked the pizza the most
Watson’s coffee got discontinued
but Jackson’s coffee was good enough
Friendly Freddy got shot and hospitalized
then he got shot and died
Johnny was the one that shot
Unfriendly Frank between the eyes

always something
never boring
never time to think
hits and blood and guts
Johnny thought his job was fun

Use me as a placeholder 
Ride out my pain 
Hold me close as my mouth calls out your name 
Let me fill the pit in your stomach 
With the pressure of my body 
Trace my soul with your eyes 
Do anything but love me 

after Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary

The baby mosquitos are little aliens on the computer screen.
“There’s the siphon,” the professor points to a tubular vessel
that brings fresh air to the larvae’s tracheids.
Most of the larvae are still, dead, the better for us to study them.
One squirms, translucent brush bristles where I think a mouth
should be.  It’s filter feeding, passive, slurping
up particles I can’t see
while their brethren float in stagnant insecticide.
The survivor may as well be an astronaut
adrift in a crewless ship through a foreign solar system.
The microscope’s light is a new sun burning.
I hope they can see the glow.

there’s that one hill
where you can go back to the rocks
it’s up past the auger road
where we’d walk in winter
in soft snow that whisper fell
on our coats, melting
in clouded breath and
we dared not speak
the spell of the mountain quiet
too important to risk
breaking

A little less black. 
More, dare I say, a
bit more gray. Make
it dark enough, enough
to presume but not light
enough to assume. The jurors.
By god, remember the jurors.
Need not feel guilty, too. 

Shoes spilling around the doorway
Strewn about and kicked off at the foyer
Dismantled from the day’s adventure 
Backpacks and end-of-the-year papers 
Still remain where they were days earlier 
Work hours have grown later 
The sunshine is lingering 
Clinging low in the evening skies 
Honeysuckle filters through the morning air
The front door swings open
Like a saloon these days 
Cooling the great outdoors 
In the most unappealing ways
Summer has definitely arrived 
Cause everyone is always rushing 
With somewhere to go 
Some place to be 
Somebody to see 
That is…. 
Except for me 
I’m always here 
Waiting on the porch
Broom in hand 
Watching them come
But mostly…
Watching them go 
Waving goodbye 
Saying I love you’s
Sweeping my worries away 
Until they drive out of sight
Every day it’s the same
They grow bigger
Need me less and less
Leave more and more 
Goodbyes get shorter
Time moves slower
While their gone
I’m still right here waiting 
Leaving the light on 
To remind them 
They are the only 
Home I’ve ever known.

Quincenara looks like “queen,” sounds like “keen” –
keen as I was at fifteen
to shed baby from cheeks,
to whittle waist into woman.

I sharpened wiles on the wild –
     boys made bad from boredom
     or fathers who left too soon –
quenched thirst with Little Kings
snuck from R’s father’s fridge.

I chugged one, held another
to my left ear until numb enough to
plunge needle through tender lobe, to
fill hole with mama’s filched diamond.

I had already learned not to cry,
to pretend nothing hurt.

The words Scam Likely on your cell phone 
A 1000-Leg crawling on the bedroom wall right before bedtime, you lost sight of 
A stranger with a Bible on the other side of your front door on a Saturday morning 
It’s telling your dad you just wrecked his brand-new car
Driving a car with no gas gauge  

Scorpion car keys, flung at my door
Shattered a portugese hand painted bowl
Three figures lounging with a cat at a doorway
Painted in Picasso or Van Gogh stylings
Pale pink ground with grey and ultramarine washes,
coloring in light, curvy line drawings
20 minutes later when I investigate the noise I find the car keys
Emblazoned with scorpion
only moments before spotting a woman
walking slowly down a driveway,
Up and across the way
Looking for car keys? I yell
You found some? She replies
Yes someone threw them at my door I reply
They shattered a bowl
Goldie thought they may belong to Dirk
Yes, I’m Laurie
Hi, I’m Jerielle.