when my first marriage
was on the rocks 
we drove to a beach 
hoping that sand and water 
would fix whatever was wrong 

watched our young children
laugh in the shallows 
ignorant of our adult problems

some believe that 
all they need is a week 
on the beach pretending
that the nine to five 
don’t care about you bosses

standing waste deep in salt and water 
while my children
now young men 
rail against
the tatnic potential death waves
that came on rolling green blue
my body still felt tired 
and that vast endlessness 
did nothing to fix
whatever this is 

Vultures convening on the body of Christ 

thank you
for forcing me to slow down
and to see the beauty in the everyday moments
even if for just long enough
to share with my fellow 2026 poets
adieu 

May you find poetry in the creases of your palms, introduce it to light.

Thank you for another wonderful June full of kindness and art! 🙂

Thank you for saying

something ugly and ignorant and homophobic

today.

I was starting to trust you too much.

I needed a reminder

that you still have claws.

It was Blue Mountain Lake
and summers shared with sibs
and cousins. It was Skaneateles

Lake and walking down
to Borodino landing with Jody,
swimming in the village park

with Catherine. It was the long 
drive from Cincinnati to Chase Lake
in the Adirondacks where

I arrived, exhausted, instantly
revived by the smell of recent
rain dripping off pines.

It was the day long drive
to the shore of Lake Michigan,
the body of water that curved

at the horizon, that catapulted
me back to childhood, and the lake
my Grandma called Ontario Ocean. 

4 and a half years
4 and a half years wasted on something that’s seems so perfect at first glance

I find myself in a dark hole
I grasp at anything I can hold onto
A hand finds mine and pulls me into the light
The light I held onto for years flickers and burns in my hands

It’s so perfect
Everything is perfect
This is what everyone dreams of

2 years pass and more and more hands pull to keep me in the light
The hand that originally served as my anchor to the light starts to sink

Down
Down
Down
Down
Down

It hits the bottom of my conscientiousness
The chain that was wrapped around my arm yanks me
I fall into the abyss leaving everything I knew behind

The anchor holds onto me
Pretending to keep me safe
We slowly rise up
Forgetting what caused us to fall in the first place

The chain around my arm tugs and tugs at my skin
What can I do to escape from its grasp?
The bolt cutters seem so enticing

But will I really leave the anchor down at the bottom?
Knowing it could never makes its way back up

What kind of man would that make me?

        I know the whole world is watching now.
        And I wish the world could see what I can see.
                -Felix Baumgartner 

People used to think it was impossible
to run a mile in under four minutes
or a 100-meter dash below ten seconds.

The sound barrier is called so
because engineers feared
any aircraft trying to push through it
would get ripped to pieces.

For millenia the world looked up at the moon
without ever dreaming we’d one day walk on it.

Somebody dives toward the earth
from 135,000 feet up in the sky
and somebody else begins planning
to jump from 140,000.

Everest was considered inconquerable.
Oceans were believed uncrossable.
The Mariana Trench was thought unreachable.
We’ve succeeded at them all.

It’s almost like human beings
have no real limitations.

So what makes you think
there’s not one person on this planet
who can handle you at your worst?

Every day, people prove
how much the physical body can do.
Why should the heart be any different?

In the stolen hours of night
a beautiful conversation gives rise
to a new, indelible wisdom.

Find ways to become limitless.
Find people to be limitless with.

Give the gift of your whole self
and live ready to receive the same.

One does not need to be a believer
to appreciate the calling
of helping to bear another’s cross.

Someone is meant to walk beside you
if you can find faith in their existence.

That’s the kind of person I aim to become.

But this journey toward home
is far from complete.

Along the way, I have fallen
and fallen and fallen again
and I will someday fall more.

Still, every time falling
is like an arrival in itself.
I take a moment
to lie in my shattered mess
remembering life,
then I set about collecting
shards of broken bone
to build myself new armor.

Eventually, I’ll be rid of my fears
and when that day comes,
the true journey will begin.

Becoming limitless with another human being.

And I hope that you
will have the courage
to be limitless with me.

Maybe then
the fearful
and the faithless
will finally find a way
to collide
in realms

of eternal creation.

Eyes red ribbon

It’s green velvet
chairs and double pane
windows and half painted
toe nails and a cat nap.

It’s condensation
on the knee and wilted
paper cups and stacked
books on the coffee table.

It’s twin tails around
the ankles and heels
tapping in the shower and 
hair twisted up off the neck.

It’s a post
in the ear and a needle
in the shoulder and a bone
deep urge to do it over.

June, June
of course it’s you.