askew

i don't remember when life became so taut 
snapping at the barest premonition
no room for syncopated rhythms: 
a smile faltering on screen,
the seconds it takes for a dear face
to compose itself, a discomfort unspoken
out of kindness, but splayed in the eyes. 
the ordinary secrecies of love and time

everything leaves a mark, everything 
must be reset, a conversation to be had
with oneself (or another, on a good day)
no tissue of trust between this life 
and the world into which it huddles, 
restless and dislodged. 

like braided ropes, we scrape against each other,
we swing between one sugar rush and the next.

library and living

The Joseph Regenstein Library
a mound of beige concrete 
colonies choked out at eleven
by the closing bell—not sleep.
Seven years of library and living
in this hill. 

After the terrifying 
long-distance call, crying 

near the turnstiles,

after the slip-up,
the fifth doctor's visit
(and all the times before),
after the lonely waking 
to another barely 
discernible dawn: 
punishment, refuge, breach
the only lit, peopled place
within reach.

Smell of coffee, couches, chatter
the fifth-floor view 
of pin-thin skyscrapers  
wispy through the sun.

Sad, tough, old hill!
Will your air feel stale 
in hindsight? Or will it still,

that is, at last, make me long

for the limestone quiet? 

This honeycomb night on loop?   

These barefoot rooms of only

paper, cloth, and stone?

onigiri

And so it happens
that my colleague
is the first to know
I've been watching
onigiri videos,
thinking maybe, someday...

rice rolling, warm in plastic
airiness of knowing
the same sauces sit 

just beyond
this loopy algorithm
lined on my shelves
that smell, still,
of fresh paint.

between endings and the everyday

this city that is also my own, in a way

smells of wet metal
and winter passing

crinkle-green seaweed
poised before my mouth
barley tea in hand

look, she says, this rice—

the recipe's scrawled in kanji

but they ship it 
from California

literary analysis

remember that it comes down 
to this: shaping prose 
by turns of thought

and patience (better—courage) 
to not turn too often 
or too quick 

pausing at a voice, a noun: 
acts of knowing, discerning 
figure from ground.