Yucca wind cuts through my coat,
the markers blur and fade.
I rode a while on golden dice
and now I walk in gray.

The sun still hangs, a blistered coin,
A whisper left of heat.
I shake dust
from a hollow skull
and drift on tired feet.

Cantinas hum their broken hymns,
the meek slip into pews,
they trade their vows for bottle rims
and saviors they can use.

The stew’s been warmed and left to cool,
her smile is soft and deep.
I pull a blanket to her chin,
watchover while she sleeps.

Their toys lie mute in cedar drawers,
their shoes set by the door,
and she still scrubs the cracking tile
as if we could make more.

I left my heart in a canyon’s jaw,
too hard to dig it free,
and let the desert keep it warm,
the way her hands keep me.

What does wind think of the camp on North 7th as it moves
under the overpass- bright blue nylon riffled,

work shirts on a rope, the entry flap breathing,
an old man’s head bent over chessboard, a rook tipping over?

What does wind know? Easy to say - nothing,
to say it knows nothing sweeping the day’s trash

down the avenue. The crawl says: fires in the West;
men with AR-15s; a mother and child face-down in the river;

children in cages, says the rise of this, the fall of that.
We say the wind knows nothing as it drives fire like a blowtorch

across the land. We blame the grid - the lineman, the line -
though we know better. We say the rain inside the wind

knows nothing, as mud swallows houses, houses fall to sea,
floods push through cities, the ocean takes back land.

We say wind and rain know nothing. We say there’s nothing
to do. The wind tussles our hair and goes on.

A tarp snaps. A rook tips. The old man uprights it.
The wind takes its turn.

Steel pan in roadside dirt,
just beyond Exit 11: Quartzsite,
sun bouncing off like a flare.

Handle loose, rim dented,
but not ruined;
still whole enough.

It felt like one I swung
at Tomaso’s,
sweating
through the rush,
that night
we plated sixty covers
in under an hour.

Me, this pan,
were used
the way hard things are:
oiled, scrubbed,
flame-kissed and blackened.
Something thick stuck once,
then let go.

I lifted it,
right hand curved
around the handle
as though it never left.
Some things remember you
even when you forget yourself.

I set it in the backseat,
beside the blanket and bag.
thought I’d clean it up,
tighten the handle,
set it on flame,
hang it by a stove again.

I don’t believe in ghosts,
but I believe in steel,
in things that hold the heat
and give it back to you.

In darkness
I left you
was when your heart was slow
instructed by the western strand
'gather clothes and go.'

I missed you
this morning.
We moved from where we strayed,
slipping free of drunken vows
fevered flesh had made

Your soft,
small picture
commands me now to kneel,
deny the gods I knew before
and drop this broken shield.

I'll ask you
tomorrow,
'please cut this tender thread.
it bleeds and binds my all to you,
your body, and your bed.

That simple
small mercy
returns my broken life
where your kiss can never hurt me,
Orion fades from sight.'

I know how
you'll answer
'we are so lightly here,
it is in love that we are made,
in love we disappear'

too wise or
too simple,
it's either black or white.
Unhealed, I'll tear at stitches
bleed out this fatal life

Remember
years later
onto those soft lit eyes
your warm belly fluttered
in a melody
of sighs.

Then drowsy, low rain
will beat us
'till we float.
we'll drift through
wet desert
in a folded paper boat.

two minute, thirty second read-time

1.
The head stank of fryer grease,
onion left too long in the sun,
sweat soaked into its seams.
Etienne Boudreaux, ‘Ebo’
to everyone at Tiger Roll,
pulled it down,
one eye watering,
the glass one fixed,
cold and bright as a marble.

"Everyone takes a turn," Boss lady said,
"-record is three minutes thirty."
clipboard scepter of the prep room,
polo shirt crisp, androgynous,
in the fluorescent buzz.

Outside on Magazine Street,
autumn leaves skittered with plastic cups,
Saints jerseys lined up for combo trays,
children sticky with hibiscus snowballs
waiting for the mascot hunt.
The sushi boat golf cart revved by the curb,
its speakers spitting static jazz.

Ebo bolted,
dodging the crowd,
a flapping brush of faux fur at the legs,
the heavy cork molding of its chest,
giant red tongue flopping from its mouth
bouncing with each lunge.

Stumbling past a busker in the square,
The plaza a haze of fried shrimp and beer,
stoops littered with jack-o’-lanterns,
their grins collapsing into mush
pigeons scattering with refusal.
For a moment he thought
he might break free.

Then the chopstick, equaling tranquilizer,
slammed his chest, emptied him.
"Two minutes fifty-six!"  Jasper grinned.

2.
On the St. Charles streetcar,
the duffel slumped in his lap,
the tiger’s stupid smile
jutting from the zipper.
His glass eye caught the window’s glow,
unblinking while the other blurred with tears.
The oaks along the square
rushed past, black against amber sky.

"Is that yours?"
The woman asked, radiating.
Lafayette Street tilted.
She led him away.

3.
Her apartment was a jungle-
walls tangled with vines,
green jars of pressed leaves,
plush animals stacked in ranks on the bed.
They did not look soft.
Their button eyes glittered like coins
spilled from a grave,
awaiting a verdict.

She crowned him with the tiger head,
tightened the fit,
her pupils wide with hunger.
One hand on his neck,
the other sliding inside her robe,
"You are the most glorious Shere Khan."

In the mask,
he believed.
The plush ranks shifted-
armies kneeling,
a kingdom bowing.
ascending was a Demi-God.
Her body arched under him,
her voice breaking on the name.

But he wanted her mouth.
He wanted his own skin.
He tore the head off-

and the slap cracked,
hard enough to sting his glass eye.

"What are you doing?"
she hissed.
Her robe rose like a curtain.
"Just go."

He fled into the night.
Loyola Avenue slick with leaves,
canal water sour with rot.
He raised the tiger head high,
a skull to be flung into the dark,
banished.

But the deposit.
Always the deposit.

He stuffed it back.
The plush eyes of her army
still on him,
the tiger’s grin
fixed, laughing
watching from the bag.

You pull me through doorways
with cherry red charm.
You fill me with whiskey
and hang on my arm.

We waltz through the wreckage,
the crown and her guest.
Your hem lined with ashes,
the last of what’s left.

The clerk asks for blood.
The stone has run dry.
We promise, tomorrow
and feed him with wine.

The clouds now move faster,
with voice of hard wind.
It speaks to you only
as thunder moves in.

You twist here beside me
and curl like a vine,
your teeth in my shoulder,
reliving some crime.

You hold me so tightly
and whisper your vows.
Your secrets stay hidden.
Your tears are so loud.

Necessity is the mother of deception.
Confession is good for the prosecutor.
The squeaky wheel
is quietly replaced.

An empty wallet
keeps the doctor away.
A fool and his money
are the foundation
of our financial system.

The early bird
catches the worm,
and is welcome to it.

What goes around
usually comes back hungry.
All that glitters
has a nondisclosure agreement.

Hope springs eternal,
in the marketing department.

You staggered through the double doors,
a trail of red on bleached-out floors.
The night was humming, wet and mean,
your busted life in Trauma Green.

I clamped your vein, soft as thread,
and dared the gods to count their dead.
You lay there broken, no ID,
just blood and ache and urgency.

Your heart fell quiet
inside my hand,
as if it paused to understand.
Then breath returned in stuttered moans.
your chest arched up to meet my own.

The wound was sealed.
Your sigh came slow.
You could have left.
You didn’t, though.
The sweat still clung.
Your gaze went slack.
You pulled the gown and turned your back.

I saw you later, checkout nine:
frozen dinners, boxed red wine.
You seemed like someone death forgot,
barely awake, missing the plot.

You looked right through. You didn’t know
the hands that pulled you from below.
You don’t remember. I can’t forget
how thin the stitch, how deep the debt.

Your demons don’t play well with mine,
They bite and they bruise and entwine.
Yours weaponize tears,
Mine whisper, come near.
The chaos is purely divine.

We drift toward escape, dark and slow,
They bloom with our secrets and grow.
Yours pull at my seams;
Mine knot in your dreams.
A dance only demons could know.

You smiled
like I was worth the wait-
or the lie.
Couldn’t tell.
You left the kitchen light on too long.
I stepped inside.
The floor gave way.

I slept beside you
as a thief
-quiet,
not for comfort-
but for the hush
that comes
when no one asks
what you’ve done.

Your shoulder
held the part of me
that still wanted
to be forgiven.
I kissed you
like confession
with no priest,
no promise,
just heat and teeth.

You didn’t flinch.
Didn’t ask what made me
this way.
Didn’t try
to fix it.

I’ve burned names
like receipts.
I’ve swallowed shame
like spit.
Walked out
of too many mornings
with hands that still remember
who they touched
and didn’t deserve.

But you-
you just set a cup beside the bed.
No questions.
No sermon.
Just water.
Just presence.
Just mercy,
without the bow.
I drank the quiet.
It didn’t heal me,
but it stayed.

And when you sang-
not loud,
just soft enough to hold the air.
you said my name
like it was still mine.
Like it wasn’t
something I’d dropped
on purpose.
Like it could
come back.

On the bus, on the plane,
a child kicks the seat,
Loudly sings a half-song
on repeat.

Watch the adults wince,
the parents hiss under their breath,
their patience thinned to wire.

They stare harder at their safety cards,
at crossword clues,
at the blue glow of movies
they won’t remember.

This is the invitation-
Not the kind printed on cardstock,
but the kind that comes with grape jelly fingerprints,
with questions about the clouds,
with shoelaces that won’t stay tied.

Tell me more about that dragon.
That’s not a shadow, it’s a mountain.
What would you name the ocean
if “ocean” was taken?

When they cry,
que the jokes,
make a peanut packet talk-
and the aisle is lighter for it.

How could this not be better
than folding yourself into a seat,
guarding your stiff silence?

Soon they’re gone,
dragging backpacks like spare limbs,
wet-cheeked or grinning.

I sit in the quiet,
watching the passengers
already back to their closed faces.
The question stays:
how could that human response
not be better
when the world hands us
small, loud,
unrepeatable gifts-
and we hand them back unopened?

I felt your skin
strip away from me-
you said you’d be right back-
as you slipped into foreign bodies,
lips soft with easy dinners,
who forgot the lightbulb burning out,
the lid left rattling on the counter,
a suit of pots dented, stacked,
steam lifting from a rust-ringed drain.

That studio in the Texas Riviera
was never meant to last-
brown carpet, AC rattling,
bass beating through drywall,
neon from the Whataburger sign
bleeding through blinds.
We were two beautiful accidents
in a month-to-month, always paid late,
your sweat a spell pressed into my skin,
ankles grinding on parking lot gravel,
the road outside a forgotten promise.

And when you smiled I held you
like a chipped glass,
rim still sharp enough to cut.
The ember died against porcelain,
the glitter was swept with the crumbs.
Your armor slumped in the pantry corner,
rusted tins, lids unfastened.
You walked away, naked and ordinary,
the light left buzzing in the kitchen-
outside, asphalt slicked with oil-sheen,
my body, also, dissolved
into the shimmer of the road.

for the one who didn’t

The tomatoes hang eaten.
Some rodent, maybe.
The cayenne doesn't work,
just burns the air I breathe.

Knees swell.
The doctor?
I haven’t called.

This is the small life
we once smirked about.

Summer again.
No mercy.
Too much.
Too bright.

Lately, I forget:
the grigio in the freezer
the last message,
why I opened the drawer.

Lately, I drop things,
envelopes, keys,
my grip softening
with everything.

You said,
“That’s what old looks like.”
But you didn’t get here.

We stay,
we wait,
for mail,
for quiet,
for a name to light the screen.

Oceanside,
in shopfront glass,
I glimpse my portrait
eyes storming, squinted,
shirt caught on wind.
And I ache,
to be so
briefly
here.

I loved a star that never knew my name,
a silent flame,
fixed in the wreck of night.
Her stillness fooled me
into believing she sang.

She blinked once
in some long-dead century,
and I’ve lived ever since
by ghost light.

They say she's gone,
burned out or broken,
but I keep whispering psalms
to her afterglow,
drinking to the shape she made
in my sky.

I don't need the truth,
just the dream
of her burning.

Like something that waited for me,
not knowing I was too late
the moment I began.