poems

 

Darker Days

Then who watches us in the overcast moments? When bad days eclipse, spread in clumps like frozen butter, rolling with it grains of stale bread and we curl, quaking from its chill? Then who praises us when the work is done? Our achievements almond flour across our palms, Residue from the perfect batch, eaten — […]

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SuperBowl Sweater

My ribcage frays in midst of must in my chest — a cracked window circulates its hollowness. Bits of bone fringe, tassels strung loose in the draft like strings at the neckline of dad’s old Super Bowl sweater he gifted to me, once folded perfectly with pride, and now it hangs shamefaced, fraying by my […]

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An Elegy for Savta

My grandmother’s house counts her breath on one hand – body barely held by flimsy stone and stripping yellow paint, veined with brittle pipelines and heaving ventilation. Moss and a barren pine raise phantom flowers to a garden that bore fruit. Once. Hungry neighbors wait for her walls. We hear their feet tap from inside […]

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12/18

I pry open my eyes for my final peaks at an Ireland in motion, but my line of vision hooks deep into fog – a soft, parting haze for my sleepy, mournful gaze   preparing my eyelids for jet-lag and Welcome to Jersey signs, and my family already waiting with a coffee at baggage claim.

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11/30

(Morning, 3)

In the morning I let myself lick the bowl – let my tea dribble down the corner of my lips, my breakfast crumbs gather onto my lap, morning sprinkles on the black of my jeans.   A meditation in mindlessness-

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11/9

(Morning, 2)

I’ll miss the mornings most.   Glimpses of a sleepy 6:30 sun Ribbon the clouds – slice my window into foggy satin strips, wake me slowly, run fabric over my eyelids, opening.   Quiet grey of my kitchen – a whisking stillness, sweeping, holding furniture in place.   My canvas bag drapes over the shoulder of my table […]

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11/1

(Morning, 1)

When I start mornings like this, the sweetness of the berries I eat seep deep into my clothes and I wear raspberries throughout the day.   Green tea steam rises from my mug, sneaks between my curls and whispers in my ear to hold my head a little straighter, a little stronger; (at least until […]

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10/6

Artists are connective tissue across this city.   Atoms in attraction, we hear the tuning of nylon-cell-strings from the trad pub down the road,   stumble up, mince-pie drunk, wired by cheap Chinese street food and the promise of midnight music at the next pub, pulling, pulling us in.

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10/8

– “A Weekend in Enniskillen”

The bus bumbles back past these toy box towns that I remember.   Six hour stretches of rainbow Jumbo Jenga, apartment atop apartment interspersed with carpets of pastoral jade.   Sheep lift their heads to greet us passerby’s.   They streak by outside my window as my poems repeat on my lips to sink into […]

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10/3

Peanut butter loneliness spreads generous over my gums;   I keep my jaws shut and roll my tongue around the gooey solitude oozing between my teeth – a sticky snack for a silent mouth.

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