The Dark Miracle of Insomnia
She handed me a baggie of holy dirt—
a gift from a new friend. Back at the motel,
it reminded me of various drugs I’d ingested
in various ways. I wondered if airport security
would sniff it out the next day.
Claw Machine
More to the left, he says, then leans to watch
the dangling claw from a better angle
as I guide the stubby joystick, grease-slick
from unwashed hands—just two coin-fed alley kids
fishing for a way to pass the time. Behind the screen,
the glass-eyed, cheap stuffed animals, cotton-cored
The Sea Turtle
Shoulder-deep in the sea turtle’s nest,
I search for remains, nothing alive.
The tiny turtles would have climbed
over each other, forming a living ladder
out of their sandy birth canal
To My Brother
Brother is such a close word,
a rabbit word, a ghost word,
a throat word, a word of blood
& root & cell & stem shot
through concrete, an agree word
Your Brain May Have a Spoon’s Worth of Microplastics
In the hospital, my stepfather wakes. They ask him who is president. Well, what year is it? he jokes, as if there will never be a time he won’t remember,
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I write to make things right, or to make myself right with things. I do this by the right use of language. This is what first struck me when I read poetry in school and the urge was born or renewed to do what I saw poetry in the right hands did. To me, poetry is the rightest use of language, and it’s no coincidence that ‘right’ and ‘write’ are homophones.