Untitled (but it's cute and super gay)

grimed streetlamps light

pavement plagued with glass

straining—the moon doesn’t come around here

police sirens sing strawberry blueberry

and your hair smells like papaya

youthful energy

in the skulking night gangs

baby-faced boys with jutting chins

hoping guns turn them men

they won’t bother us anyways

this bodega smells like

donkeys and cigarettes and sulfur

we heave ourselves over the fence

to the neighborhood pool

your dad thinks you like boys

the water is warm and

chartreuse in cheap starlight

I hold you

all elbows and grasshopper legs

you taste like chlorine and summer

Unso much dirt in this town

I kiss the crime rates from your neck

you point out how the broken glass bottles

look like diamonds

if we squint and tilt our heads

Stuck in my Head Again

Fairy lights b l u r

without my glasses.

Sight is so cumbersome

and I wish candy floss

was wearable

like a stained cloud.

The sound of magpies

terrifies me

how awful to love things

that glitter.

Give me mud,

wet and brick red

and chapped lips

from hiking in winter

or kissing too hard.

Both my parents love

lilacs

but not each other.

I’m partial

to sunflowers

in flesh, not connotation.

If loving everyone

is True and Good

what about Cruella DeVille?

She wanted to kill puppies.

Passenger Seats

Sing me passenger seats—

windows down, frost

collects on our laughter.

The wind is so cold but

generated heat blasts our

mudded hiking boots.

The world doesn’t matter.

A waltz on the radio.

I dream in mountain roads—

icicles blaze cliffsides

a moment frozen

               sparkling.

We joke about death

I picture our car tumbling

down the mountain

a sweet child’s toy.

I can’t stop loving you

and the air is so clean

pine and snow and snow and snow

dissolve past the window.

Timelessness

in evergreen and three four timing

a painful lilt

because ice melts

and our eyes are the same color.

Something Like Romance

I hear

the great lakes feel

like oceans

and your heart feels

symmetrical to love

puddles to great masses

of roaring saltwater

but still vague

mirrors, watery reflections

of the real thing

that’s all I wanted

something like romance

not a glass screen door

seemingly open

always locked tight

I hear

crashing

is it from a seashell or

those blue blue blue eyes

both impenetrable, an easy mistake

Ornithology

Seagulls swan-dive

willingly into the

bitter November bay

intrepid plunging

and seeking

marine breakfast.

We avoid eye contact

avoid depth

pulling ourselves to

this feeding frenzy

feathered valor.

Laughter feels like choking

on dry biscuits.

A sparrow twitters

anxiously nearby

flashes of grey wing

from dead bush tangles.

We crane our

lonely necks

us scientists

us ornithologists.

I was hoping you’d

study the way

our palms connected

etched lifelines pressed together.

Instead we drink juice boxes

to busy our tongues

slurping from cardboard

while seagulls feast.

An eagle,

Clawed umber giant

casts shadows

on the steel water

birds shadowing birds.

Tiny featherhearts

more chaotic, more fervent,

more alive

than ours.

Sentiment is Dumb

Yasher Koach.

May you have strength.

Actually,

I’d like to have

a thick milkshake,

sweetcreamycold

and I’d like for Grammy

to not be dead.

But thank you for the sentiment.

I acknowledge your kindness

and raise you practicality

(or is this heartbreak).

Threshold

Threshold—

a window, perhaps.

A cracked door.

An archway bursting

With lilacs.

My breath catches

at the risks

heart stuttering

under the heft

“what if”

pumps into the bloodstream.

I could stay

or look down

step through

even j u m p

oh god. Maybe not jump.

My toes hide

behind sturdy shoes

practicality

in neat laces

and soles glued

to the past.

One step for mankind?

Am I Icarus or intrepid

safe or unlimited

at this verge.

One ledge, one body

a million messes to lose

or set     free.