Selected Performances
My Dragon
I had recently moved to Santa Barbara with my husband of, then, 14 years. We were having a rather ordinary night but my mind was adrift. This poem isn’t about slaying the dragon, but learning to live with him.
I wrote this poem in 2023 and included it in my collection, The Hallelujah Massacre and Other Household Mahem. It was featured in the online literary magazine, Stanza Cannon.
“I am crashing into a hit and run kingdom
with pockets empty and hands splayed like busted radiators”
Parricide
I wrote this poem a number of years ago, in a different time. We haven’t come as far as I had imagined.
A reflection on Betty Lou Beets, who was executed in Texas after killing her husband after tolerating years of his abuse. I don’t often wax (overtly) political in my poems. This might be the most patriotic thing I’ve ever written.
“Grim reapers like governors, hiding their castrations with the very same flag that covers our hears, but fails to cover our souls.”
Euphemisms
Sometimes poems start like a serios of polaroids for me. In this case, I saw both the bridge and the note stuck to the refrigerator. The poem coalesced around these images.
I’m grateful to Cathexis Northwest Press for picking this up last year.
Astronaut
This is a little experiment as we imagine ways to make poetry a bit more accessible.
This was written a long time ago and most often performed paired with another poem - which may make its appearance in the future.
“The only difference between all the words I’ve written here are all the things I haven’t.”
“I want to be an astronaut when I grow up.”