POETRY: 2020
Poems published in literary journals in 2020
Published in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily,
December 29, 2020
I know you are struggling, that you had
already fought and kicked to make it
to spring break, to the week when we would
all come up for air before the final push
of a hard semester. But break week this year
was a last gasp, right before our class was sliced
in two—into before, into after
Published in Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing,
December 2020
In the end
the silence was all
I could hear.
Published in Clementine Unbound,
October 27, 2020
This winter spring summer
has been a long haul of suffering
and silence, of sickbed days on repeat,
with life pared down to its essence
Published in The Literary Nest,
Volume 6, Issue 3: Fall 2020
I sat in my yard today for the first time
in weeks, no, the first time this spring,
and as I sat, a light rain spattered around me.
I sat a little longer, feeling the sky darken,
the shadows grow sharp, and the birds sing
more brightly, as spatters turned to drops.
Published in New Verse News,
August 3, 2020
We are standing
in a very dangerous place
calling the children to peer over the edge
of the precipice
as if it is a class trip
to the Grand Canyon.
Published in Halfway Down the Stairs,
June 1, 2020
We dwell in this quiet
house, sealed tight from a world
grown unfamiliar over long breathless
weeks. Dry hot battles have waged
within these walls, each day won,
or lost, with the steady flood
of oxygen, to the rise and fall
of body temps and the tight
burn within my chest.
Published in Crack the Spine,
Issue 262, May 22, 2020
You can hear it, right?
I inhale, deep, deep, in search of words.
I can barely breathe.
Published in New Verse News,
April 24, 2020
The president wondered today
if we might wipe out the pandemic
with disinfectant, like we swipe
over doorknobs and countertops,
sprayed inside our bodies, or
tremendous amounts of light.
Published in Stirring,
Volume 22, Ed. 2, Spring 2020
What I want today
is the voice
of Alice Waters inviting me
into her warm kitchen,
to select greens,
imbibe their sweet fragrance,
shred them bit by bit
into an earthen bowl
Published in Cabinet of Heed,
Issue 32, April 2020
It could take a lifetime
to recover
from the daggers
you speak, proud,
uncensored. But yours
are not
the words
of a brave man.
Published in The New Verse News,
April 7, 2020
I have spent these slow motion
weeks watching the world scramble
and panic through the 8 square inch surface
of my phone, cupped in the palm of my hand.
Published in Kissing Dynamite,
Issue 14, February 2020
​She said she could feel a spirit
in the middle room,
that she felt someone
had died right there,
in the room
with the wide plank floors.
Published in New Verse News,
January 5, 2020
In Australia, the magpie
pipers have sounded the alarm.
Strange singing sirens lure
us to belated attention,
whistling their learned panic
cry as we lean in and stare.