One Inappropriate Analogy Haiku Life with you is sweeterthan water sports witha diabetic      (First published in The Legendary, 2009)

Love Similies I fall for you like    Karl Wallenda          fell for the circusI fall for you like     Fat Man fell          for NagasakiI fall for you like     DB Cooper My passion burns for you like     a helium balloon          in a solar flareLike a noonday ant     under a bad boy’s          magnifying glassLike

Letting God on the train into sunsetmy history is so brittleephemeral and fleeting abandoned power linesstand forgotten marchingforlornly along the tracks old splintered poles tired fromhalf a century have dropped theirwire burdens into the underbrush my eyes don’t focus like they usedto so I lean back like these polestrying to

Excavation They found my fossilized remainswhile excavating a freeway on-ramp.They were encased in volcanicrock, millions of years old.In fact you can still see the site today,abandoned within the cloverleaf of I-89. Of course, after the constructionall that remains is a vague outline—a foot, some hair, a couple teeth.And there isn’t

Emily’s Legacy Emily Dickinson’s sunlit horsesand snakes sliding through the grasslive now on a New England farmwhere they look over bailsof freshly mowed hayand miss their patron terribly The northeast pastoralhas a long memorybut only back to Emilywho shuttered her windowswhen the ladies came to callbut never shooed away the

Distant Thunder I. The First Year Somewhere, off our mountain,the rumors say oldbattles continue. But here the sun is warm,and distant wars meanlittle to hummingbirds. News can be slow to reach us,and harder stillto comprehend. Yes, we know they are dying still.But the planes don’t fly overhere anymore, and although

Business Expenditures I unpack my lustin cheap hotel roomsof cities I’ll never see. I toss him carelesslywith my change and roomkey onto the nightstand, Where my lust sits forgottenas I shower and gaze into thenight, dripping with neon. My fingertips paint runes onclouded glass, and we hearlaughter across the hall.

Ben You say     you don’t like poetry     don’t want to hear it     just never got it     and I swoon because     your air in my lungs     wants to thicken into words     birth verses composed     of our mingled spit     two tongues     that nose playfully in the rain     stanzas of falling sweat     strophes

Altar I worship nightlyat the shrine of your ass. For it is the cavewhere Buddha sleeps. A wishing wellfull of coins and dreams. A mysterious and unexpected letterto be opened slowly with deliciousanticipation.    (First published in Dressing Room Poetry Journal, 2013)