Punishment
They used books as weapons.
This is not a metaphor.
Because there were no blankets and they were cold,
the men in cell block L threw books
with intent to do bodily harm.
They rained down from above.
Killing the Snake Plant
This used to be the tallest living thing
in the house without legs. What happened?
You can’t remember if it was over-water
The End of Hurt Is Not Healing
Whose bright idea was it to start tearing
out pages of poetry and wadding them up
to plug our wounds? The poems I like don’t
even come when you call them.
From the Inside
we have no need to know if we are loved
or that love exists.
No worry whether sky is blue or gray
or even sky.
After Reading that Merriam-Webster’s 2023 Word of the Year Is ‘Authenticity’
I wonder about the future poems
I will read, generated by AI,
the imperceptibly pixelated
tulips pushing through the rich soil in them,
the deepfake MFA bios attached
to them like deflated orange balloons
In Favor of Union
I remember that brief period of hyphenation.
When separate cups held each of our toothbrushes,
and they bowed to one another honorably from across the vanity.