I wanted out so badly, but I could never bring myself to turn the page. Everyday, I used to pack my things in a trash bag and placed them, hidden, near the front door. I’d then write letters saying goodbye to everyone and I’d seal them shut. Placing them inside the mailbox along with my copy of the house key after my mom checked for mail. Then when day intertwined with night, I waited for everyone to sleep, before I threw off the blanket that protected me and put on my shoes.

I build engines
from the lines of battle
no matter how they are drawn.

I build engines
from the lungs of drowned sailors,
their last breaths billowing the waves.

I build engines so lubricious and lubricated
you can feel them in your blood
before you hear them.

I build engines that churn entire continents
without revealing a word.

I build engines that feast on copses
of burning hair and thickets of eyelashes.

I build engines from milk and meat
and the decanted semen of aborted generations.

Cold ravioli at midnight
as I argued politics with your mother.
A tumbler of red wine at noon
when your father urged me never
to give up on love.
At the farmhouse you grew up in,
I slept in your sister's bedroom
as if it were mine. I woke
to a swaying pattern of fig leaf shadows
on a yellowed window shade
and the voices of cherry pickers.

You took me out in the orchard,
deep enough so that all we could see
were rows of trunks under leaves,
a grid of trees picked clean in dry valley dirt.
Every place we stood was the center

Open his door. The shock the mind lives
and lives in freeze-frame is more
than this long and narrow room
can show; too long and narrow
to fit your understanding
of the shape of a room.

Church bell sounds disfigured through the window;
the rooftops, the other windows.
A layer of old words he smeared
only make themselves known
when held up to the moon,
are otherwise a lemon juice trick, nowhere.

Room drips with small superstition;
shivered face of a stopped clock
he never replaced.
Here where he tucked in the chair to his desk,

I sat quietly on the beach- a beautiful site, watching the waves gleam under the sun
As I felt the gritty and rough sand scrape gently against my bare legs, as it got hotter.
It was oddly calming to see the slight, yet frequent movement of the ocean.
I felt at peace, as the sun glared at the moist sand and reflected off of the water.

I stood up and started walking towards the ocean as if it were calling to me.
I was hit with a startling amount of coldness, as the waves crashed against my feet.

It wasn’t a spectacular leaf—
rather drab, too long from tree.
Yet, the life it clutched
in five trembling points
turned my strides into steps
into stasis.
I watched it dance,
sucking more from a gust
than nearby leaves
better suited to flying.
It spiraled away
to a lazuline sky
while I remained rooted;
going nowhere.

S-ummertime memories of the past, melon balls swirling
    in a cooling drink.
I-magining so many children in a shimmering pool,
   yelling excitedly in their early June freedom from school.
G-ifted, though I was, with you, I let go of you.
H-olding close those summer nights of your moonlit face,
   embracing me on the soft dunes, my heart hurts,
   my love of long ago, how could I have let go of you?

blue corn tortillas
on a cracked stoneware platter—
white ceiling fans hum
to mariachi music
on the kitchen radio

~Santa Fe, New Mexico

First published untitled in Neon Graffiti: Tanka Poetry of Urban Life. Ed. by M. Kei. Perryville, MD: Keibooks, 2016. Print.

I am looking
through a door frame,
beyond it, into another room,
at a table
and a single lily in a vase.
There are no fixtures and fittings
and no electricity,
only sunlight or moonlight.
The table is made of elm
and the lily is made of itself.
I change the water daily.
As nothing dirties it,
the room does not need cleaning
and I leave my shoes at the entrance.
The lily stamens shed their pollen.
I leave the door to the room
open –
you know what I am going to say:
the vase is broken,
the water spilled
and the lily spoiled –

At the first sight of you, the Alpha in you demanded my attention instantly It's like your soul was welcoming me in, into a place that would somehow help me find me ,not blind me with lies and flattering eyes But accept me and all that I aspire to be. Your love found me hiding behind my brick wall Your Love is strong enough to mentally make those bricks fall and shatter You picked up the pieces to my life and gave it some balance My heart was once splattered and smeared across railroad tracks and bumpy dirt roads I knew nothing about love except for what I was told The stories of the old g