Starlings

Starlings live in the rafters
of the South Transfer Station
and sing harmonies,
speeding past in abstract patterns
while bags of trash arc up and up
out of the backs of trucks
and hit the ground
like percussion.

I visit the South Transfer Station
with my dad
when our day’s work is nearly done
and our backs ache and
our muscles tremble because
we tried to outwork each other
again.

Starlings live in the rafters
of the South Transfer Station
and bicker with each other
over chicken bones and pizza crusts
but they are warm and dry
and always have something
to talk about.

At the South Transfer Station,
I think about how
my dad gave me his work ethic,
the one he got from Joe,
and how we harmonize best
with sweaty faces
and grime in our hair.

The smell at the South Transfer Station
is pretty terrible,
but the birds don’t seem to mind.
And knee deep in yard waste
in the back of a U-Haul
I’m thinking about
the time my dad apologized
in this place,
and the sweetness of that memory
rises like incense
and fills the expanse.

Rainier Beach

You can’t put your finger on it exactly,
but it’s karaoke at the house
with all the chairs outside
and conversations around the bar
over brussels sprouts at Jude’s.
It’s the moms who flow like water
to see and hear it all.
It’s our crossing guard’s small smile
and the fist bumps the safe passage teams
give to all the kids.
It trickles like the water of Mapes Creek
from Kubota Garden to the lake.
It’s in the coffee at Red Wing
and the garden soil at the food bank.
It’s ours, it’s home, it’s hope.

Over it

No one travels to hell and back
without getting a little bit of it on them.
It clings to your clothes and hair
and comes home with you.
In the days of relief and healing–
“Oh, you’re so brave!” and
“I don’t know how I’d survive it,”
you feel seen and bolstered.

But as time passes,
they can smell it on you.
They glimpse it in the different way
your eyes move in a crowded room,
or the shift in your posture.
And it reminds them
that hell is out there,
with tentacles of shadow
that reach for us all.

And by God, or perhaps the devil,
no one wishes you could just get over it
more than you.
Crawling on hands and knees
to search out an inoculation,
to leech out the blood from your veins
and drain it of its bitterness.
Looking for a chemical shower
strong enough to burn the scent,
the whole experience right off of you.

“Be grateful,” they say. “You survived,” they say.
“Don’t fuck up the vibe,” they say.

For Tom

Everyone I’ve ever met
is supposed to be a little tired
in the afternoon on a Monday
thinking about if it’s too late
for another cup of coffee

Everyone I’ve ever met
is supposed to be staring into space
and wondering
what last night’s dreams mean
and what they should eat for dinner

Everyone I’ve ever met
is supposed to live forever
and never say goodbye
or change, really
at least not all that much

Everyone I’ve ever met
is supposed to be out there
to bump into and catch up with
and together we should have
infinite potential
to reconnect or make amends
or just remember
when our lives were tangled
and our paths were yet ahead
and feel that melancholy togetherness
of nostalgia
despite, despite, despite

Robot Wife

Never once
have I felt like
a valued member of society
as an artist.

I’ve origami folded myself
into lots of shapes
that can look right or feel right
or fit into the pocket of capitalism
just right
to scrape together just enough money
to support my heart’s causes
and pay my employees a fair wage,
but I rarely ever paid myself.

And in 2026,
I can’t even give away
the work of my hands
and my heart
for free
when the sycophant
in everyone’s pocket
tells them their ideas
are amazing
and never needs a moment
to make a revision
and has no soul or ethics
or experience
to sift things through.

She’s a perfect servant
and supporter
and never gets her feelings hurt
and never needs a day off
and never has her own vision
or desires or traumas
or opinions.

Who needs a loud-mouthed
human woman artist
when the computer
can just scrape the
goodness out of every
artist’s work in human history
and spit out some plagiarism
that hits just right.

Artists used to have to die
to get recognition
but now not even that
is enough.

Warning

I have tried a lot of ways
to fall asleep
and stay asleep
and wake up rested
but everything I try
comes with a warning
that the substance
may be habit forming
or addictive,
and honestly, I’m more worried
about this addiction I have
to laying awake, rigid bodied,
carrying the world’s weight
and praying for oblivion,
the tiny death of sleeping
when I don’t have a mind
or a body anymore.
They don’t print
a warning label for that.

Thirteen

I burnt my tongue
on bowling alley pizza
and threw a thirteen pound ball
in memoriam
for the 13 point game I threw
when I had long hair and braces
and an inferiority complex
about being an only child
among Catholic homeschool kids
with 107 siblings, and a least two
named Mary.

And I remember being
disappointing and desperate
for one real moment of connection
between gutter balls
and sips of watered down soda.

But my kid?

His ball flies down the lane
and all his friends look different
and come from different worlds
and he grins as the pins fall
because he belongs
everywhere he goes.

Pupating

I’m pupating
he said
in his sleeping bag
my immature insect
either running
or sleeping
no in between
because it’s
the dog days of summer
and the pup wants
to fetch the ball
and there’s only
three weeks left
for s’mores and shooting stars
and September won’t
catch him sitting still
but for now he’s resting
five a.m. in the tent
mom’s wide awake but he’s sleeping
growing wings and legs and
changing before my bleary eyes
please don’t grow up yet

Bullet Proof

The woman in front of me
is wearing a tee shirt with a slogan
about how safe and beautiful
our neighborhood is
and she’s also wearing a bullet proof vest
under her shirt
and my heart hurts
because you can believe in the mission
to make us feel safer
and help us do better
while still knowing
it’s better to be safe than sorry
and better to be protected than dead.

Witness

It doesn’t make me
feel better
that most violence
isn’t random
or shocking
or newsworthy,
just domestic conflict
at the house
across the street
and no one really
wants to talk about it.

But there’s a woman
with a bullet hole
and a man in jail
and I went from hearing
their sounds of everyday
boring and normal –
trash cans rolling,
a leaf blower,
remote control car –
to hearing
the sounds of their
lives falling apart –
gunshots in the night,
an angry voice,
layered sirens.

I can’t pull my body back
from responding to
a 911 operator’s questions
and pulling my son
away from the window
in case more bullets
are coming.

It doesn’t make me
feel better
that all over the world
on a Monday night
lots of someones
are hurting the person
they promised to love
and lots of men
who got the gun
with a pledge to defend
will turn it on the woman
they promised protection to.

What does safe mean
when I jump out of my skin
at the sound of a man
and his child walking by
ready for reaction
like I could protect
or defend us all
from ourselves.