Animal Switch
Published in Typewriter Emergencies (Pages 6 – 7, June 2018) and Still Human (Falkenberg Press, 2025)
Factory Body
At home, I check the tag on my rainbow shirt: made in India. The tag on my vintage-looking jeans: made in China. The tag on my boxer briefs: made in […]
Diet Craze
I skimmed a news headline about some scientist finding sugar in oxygen. So I’m cutting out oxygen for a year. You mustn’t worry or drag your worry to […]
Oakland Eyes
Remember when a gun got found in a kid’s backpack at our daughter’s elementary school. As soon as she breathed back home, I sped over to feel her heartbeat […]
Earth Through Salmon Eyes
Published in Poemelon: A Journal of Poetry
New Roommate
“Who are you?” I yelled at a woodpecker pecking a bedroom nest in my one-bedroom apartment. “Are you Alder?” the woodpecker chatters back. “Yes. This is my Oakland apartment.” “Well […]
Voiceless
“How are you, Clementine?” “—.” “Why can’t you talk?” Clementine opens her mouth to reveal a frog in her throat. “Why is there a frog in your throat?” Clementine writes […]
Birth Head
Through her delivery room screams, Luna pushed out wailing life. While my genetic shadow had two human arms and two human legs, a lettuce head sat on top of her […]
Cemetery Run
Mary runs through the open gate of Mountain View Cemetery where gravestones surround her sweat on a curved road. In Mountain View, she gapes upon a downtown skyline. […]
Oakland’s Bullet
When Oakland took their bullet for a walk, that runaway caliber pressed its width into brown skin within a multigenerational neighborhood outsiders stamp as another ghetto. Oakland took their […]