I swung from trees
on homemade knots
to kiss you on the cheek.
While you built rotten tables
and we grew up to be thieves.
You told me you would build our house
when from mine we would sneak.
You said you'd fix the broken boat
in the field where we would meet.
Campfires dulled the stars
but it was the only light we'd need.
We both kept our virginity
too scared to even sleep.
You called me beautiful and perfect
even though I wouldn't eat.
Your dad always cut your hair short
but you knew I liked it curly.


Wind blown hair from dusty drives
getting lost on winding roads.
I never listened to your jokes
and we never stole the boat.

All Change at Zima Junction

For Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1932-2017

Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction
Changes lives; nineteen becomes twenty-one
With hardly a pause for twenty and then
Everyone asks you questions you can’t answer

And then they say you’ve changed, and ignore you
The small-town brief-case politician still
Enthroned as if she were a committee
And asks you what are you doing back here

And then you go away, on a different train:
Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction

“I went, and I am still going.”1


1Yevtuskenko: Selected Poems. Penguin,1962

it's less about staring at the walls
and more about them staring back
leaving you speechless even
when you didn't have words to share

it's looking at an application page
the way you look at one of her pictures
unsure how you should go about this
and how disappointed you'll allow yourself to be

it's waking up on the wrong side of your twenties
admitting there's nothing to discuss
still stuck in this limbo
you swore you'd never visit in the first place

it's volunteering your insecurity
to navigate conversations
and dictate decisions
made inside days
irrelevant to dates or names of the week
and unprepared to call any of it a moment

it's spending days in shopping malls
and bookstores
turning your back on time
like a bad dream
or a bad idea
you can't help but run with

it's finding a rear view mirror
in an unexpected place
seeing yourself before some background
a single reflection with no intent
to leave a lasting impression

Trapezoid upright her rank again
today aflame that a pod acute
with destiny very luminous and
abashed administration die in transit
with Mar-a-Logo and backtrack abreast nepotism.

embracing a forgotten dream
a touch that has transcended eternities
with all disquiets and elapsed relationships
will you be the last stop of my wavering?

but forgive me, honey
i can only love you from afar
without your consent
without you knowing

Multiple shades of blue and green,
And all the colors in the spaces in between.
Piercing, soft ,and slanting eyes;
Warm ones that match the seas and the skies,
But when I woke up next to you
The greens were blue;
Tinted moons of a different hue
Revealing a whole new you.
And sunlight will hit your face,
And bring me back to a past place
With warm winds and baby chins.
They’ll never change
Though will the place, season, or age.
All I see are colors of you,
And I hope all you see are colors of me too.
You’re shades of green;
Ever changing and beauties of this world you have seen.
You’re variations of blue;
Same color, just a different hue.