i am a doll dug out of a landfill

Poet of the Month at Vallejo Poetry Society

Roe v Wade -related poems in Headline Poetry & Press

little ditch

My chapbook about a teenage girl who excavates her agency from internalized misogyny, rape culture, & sexual abuse is now available from Rob McLennan’s above/ground press. 

from ammonite sonnet

the ammonite an index of sutures
i got tired of cataloging them
hermetically sealing little traumas
afraid they’d get to know one another go boom
little mother catastrophes instead
i smashed little rocks to bits in a ditch
each shard a memory released pressure
from stomach the common burial ground
the cavity of accumulation
each little box coated in dust and feelings
each glass stone chamber not really secret
i get ready to shatter the discretions
i open my palms no explosions no pain
coalesce little traumas wrap your wounds
around each other a chrysalis blood
a becoming of feathers of air a fire

ditch poem #20

it was the wildness

everything was singing and

you tried to protect me

i resisted it was pitch

and forest it was the trenches

i washed my mud and

donned its mother i slept

among the trees my golden guilt

it was the wild nests of

Brooklyn summer it was the

Cyclone everything was grit

and sunshine a glitter

of dun sand. What is protection

he asked under the boardwalk

who rides the Wonder Wheel

i resisted it was milk

or the ditch

so i started digging.

ditch poem #6

we’re all becoming animals here

our scaly skins showing through the stained glass

why now why slither

the rainbow gate beneath suit sleeves

beneath chiffon and tweed

the rainbow plexus in our throats

once a wren ever an abalone shell

we were whole once

wander detritus wonder

the furs in the soft air

gentle browns of wood and bark

as the furs gallop by

identify me

call me into

curiosity pinwheel

i make little sparks

in recent lavas

we were the hands holding

tectonic/footstep

we were the under

and beneath

to speak in soil tongues

to be called into ditches

to be summoned

venal wing

wet black eros melt

leaf matter and dirt cake

the cavity of I root

small declivities of teeth

along the rim

how the mouth knows

we were once rose quartz

we were agate

smashed and smashed

among the rock

your smooth body a reminder