“A Poem to an Old Friend”
sam eighteen years old barely
a man but not quite a child
swallowed water at the lake
he spit it out maybe worrying
for a second about the dirt in it
how could he have known that
when he went to bed he wouldn’t
wake back up drowning in his sleep
his mom rushed in when she
heard bubbling gasping screeches
coming from his room a mother
discovering her own child dying
of a nightmare inside his own bed
how he must have grasped at
his face how she must have
screamed his name to God
death makes us forget why
we stopped speaking to all
the people from our past
he was so young and I still
remember making fun of him
in high school he was the
gangly kid on the track team
who couldn’t keep his limbs
under control yet while we
taunted him we also cheered
during every race I believe the
last time I saw him was when
we all dove into a pool in the
middle of winter and everyone
almost passed out from shock
screaming and leaping upwards
in a fluid motion I think we all
could’ve had water in our lungs
he could have been
any one of us
“Damp Air”
she liked when he coated her like a film
of humidity when his body weighed
on hers in the night she craved
the moisture and he began leaving
sticky drops of condensation on her belly
she would sleep in the red Tacoma
dwelling and wait for him to come to
her they’d nestle like bodies in a canoe-
shaped casket because she sought to find his
soft fingers in her hair his gentle breeze
stirring her braids but when the wind stilled
she knew she was alone and the mountains
were forever behind them she couldn’t
remember the last time she was cleaned by rain
and she wondered if it was time to go home
“Don’t Forget to Flush”
mom used to find bits of my chopped off hair
around the house: under the kitchen carpet and
in the toilet (not flushed, just floating)
she would line us up in the hall and demand to know
whose it was my big sister was too much of a goody-
goody to try anything new with her hair so she could
always point to the short patch near my neck
I guess I didn’t outgrow my love of scissors until later
in life after I learned to carve lines in my wrist with
them when I was sad or wanted to try something new
except this time I was better at hiding the evidence
and if I happened to leave behind any blood-soaked
tissues I remembered to flush them down the toilet
instead of letting them float there like limp goldfish
“The Road Home”
we left Colorado with bitter coffee
in our mugs and the
crusted evidence
of sleep still on our eyelids
I took the wheel first, shading my face
from the light of early sun while you
watched the mountains pass and
crumble
into prairieland
we stopped
at the last dispensary before the border to
buy $50 worth of edibles
that we later lost
in California
still we itched to keep moving to press
forward
somewhere greater
than the last
place we’d just been and when
we reached our destination triumphant yells
echoed
through forests of cholla and Joshua trees
I couldn’t help being reminded
of my own home
by the sweeping fields of gold and empty highways
but I realized
I couldn’t decide on a place
of origin anymore
I loved both worlds: one
dappled in oil rigs and the other
full of dark mountains
capped in summer snow
haunted by memories of
both
I moved constantly
in pursuit of myself