Under Their Whim

How swiftly we became  

           subservient  

to masters mere weeks old,  

    with their tiny, dagger teeth. We,  

are wrapped around petite paws,  

    willing to be flicked and flipped  

         at their kittenish whim.  

This, they do not know yet.

      But soon they will.

As waiting by each other's side  

     in the encroaching night,  

  every shape and line  

in the shadows of our front yard  

        utters a mew.  

Even the blades of grass  

          are young, wild, and made anew.

adopted

A father grows to tolerate

his female son. She's a bleeder

but can be the son he never had

when she’s holding the header

to a 1991 Chrysler New Yorker,

when she is watching bikinis

run on the sandy Florida beach,

and when she bests the boys

she will never be.

somewhere no one says no

Do you like me? Could you love me?

Am I enough? Are you sure?

Can I lay where you've laid?

Is this nail polish your favorite shade?

How about this big, warm bed?

Oh, you like my shirt? It's yours.

Do I satisfy your thirst? Are you hungry?

Shall I make us dinner? Is this your favorite meal?

The one I cooked? Do I wear an aura that enchants you?

Is my face sparkling to you? You like looking at me?

Could you love me when I'm rigid and scheduled?

What if I change? If I fall into a lazy spell, will you stay?

Love me in my mess? Clean up my wild, untamed space?

Take me home? Make this a home? Our home?

Would you like that too? Am I safe with you?

Do you also want to be near me like a book press?

Then every night, can we come together?

Just like this? Reflecting each other's eyes?

Fold into each other like the sheets?

And never stop? Be like this forever?

Was that a yes? Did you say yes?

love like asmr

Feather-soft bunny furs,
cotton candy whispers,
pink cloud floating,
in these silky sheets—

Lay me down to sleep.

Playing hide and seek,
giggling when we

didn’t find God, but
instead, God found us—

wrapped in a blanket,
drinking our apple juice,
playground confident,

still reading all the notes
we passed over the years.

"Are you sitting down?" a voice on the phone asks

Watching toddlers on the sunlit stairs

with their wobbling leaps on new legs,

a boy sits at the open table next to me.

I can smell him say, "Yes, I'm sitting down now."

It's a stinking panic sweat I've known.

Yes, now, he is seated and on the phone.

This must be his freshman year, too.

'Cause I have been a freshman seated on the phone—

I look towards the kids jumping on the stairs,

testing the limits of legs, and pretend I don't know.

Don't know what the boy or the kids are going through.

But in my life, I, too, have been seated on the phone

for bad news, and I have jumped a stair or two.

poem dedicated to someone I ain't met yet

I want to take you to a ball game,
where we’d be on the edge of our seats,
screaming, hot, and nestled in the crowd.
It’s here you might fall in love with me, too—

When I tell you I could be a WNBA referee,
I’d like you to be captivated by the fact
that it only takes a high school diploma
and passing a test to be on the court.

It would be nice if you believed me,
even if I’m not entirely sure I could.
Naturally, you’d know this isn’t an aspiration,
but a dedication, like how I don’t need to be
a professional chef to cook and nourish you.

Just as there are men on the court
whose sole job is to mop up sweet sweat
dripping from bouncing ponytails,
without getting in the way or interrupting,
I want to live to serve and adore you.

I would, too, sprint or crawl to clean up
whatever falls from you so you don’t slip,
while staying out of your way, letting you be the star.
It would be nice if you appreciated me, too—

but that’s not that necessary.

irritation intiation

Hands covered in ant bites,

scratching only worsens the itch.

I'm no Sateré-Mawé, not in Brazil;

this won’t make me a man.

Yet after this summer,

I have emerged changed in some way—

more myself than ever,

yet also more different than ever.

And I think you can all feel it.