– FROM FAMILIAR TENSE
DISH OF MASHED PEAS
Some people are not destined for happiness,
and I may be one of them.
You see, in certain parts of the world where
I have been and now live,
at least in my dreams, happiness is only
granted to a woman
who leaves a dish of mashed peas out in
the moonlight overnight.
But superstition does not name what moon
phase or if one must
eat the peas. Instructions too vague.
Peas uneaten. Moon dark.
No happiness yet. I'd ask my Nana if she
were still here,
but she was the one who gauged oven heat
with a bent elbow
and said happiness was to bake a cake
until done.
Familiar Tense, 2019
First published in The Southern Review, 2018
THE SHUT DOOR
In chalk on the black door, someone has drawn
the world yet to come. A child—androgynous,
with a tangle of ink-dark hair—is taking that
future, using both hands to smudge it, to blur
the clouds, the ascension. Now chalk in hand,
he/she, in Oshkosh overalls and Keds, short legs
splayed, is screeching out a new vision. Here,
there are gateless fences to trap and imprison,
angry scribbles and, below, lines that might be
grass but are, instead, fire, conflagration.
We can't see the child's face, but when someone
bullies through the shut door his/her face will
be licked and crazed by the silent white flames
Familiar Tense, 2019
First published in Blue Fifth Review, 2018
MEMO TO A FORMER CHILD PRODIGY
by the age of nineyou knew everythingtra-la
had met two Presidentstra-la could explain pi
memorize Shakespeare soliloquies
or checkmate anyone blind-folded child's play
violinoboe harpsichord duplicate bridge
so whatthen was left to do
cut cornersfit in marry someone
polish silver slap your childrenor go back
back to one tra-la then two and so forth
‘til you learn to love all that blooms in the spring
Familiar Tense, 2019
This poem also appeared in the Denver Quarterly 2014;
Memos, Omnidawn Press, 2015, and
Best American Poetry, 2016.