You’re Guilty of Being a Woman
when you drag the womb of your womanhood down the Gratification Aisle. You pick a price-slashed clitoris since the one Ma gave you got kicked in the […]
Laika
Published in The Cosmos is Alive (Kelsay Books, 2023)
In the Smoke
“The Camp Fire started on Thursday, November 8, 2018, in Northern California’s Butte County . . . an urban firestorm formed in the foothill town of Paradise.” “Remembering the Camp […]
Mutant
Published in Speculative City: Issue 6 Industry (2020) and Still Human (Falkenberg Press, 2025)
Skull Walk
Coyote shambles north along San Pablo Avenue. At the West MacArthur Boulevard intersection, he trips over a skull. “Oakland, what is this white sphere my paw crushed a hole through?” […]
East Bay Seed
When the rat climbing up the wall makes a seedy flower go bloom, my organs rearrange themselves in frightful frenzy. Rat fur does that to my nervous system. It’s […]
Stray
When a stray bullet is a stray dog, a stray dog barks within a chamber of anger before runaway legs unhinge themselves from a gun’s steel ownership to […]
Sister Hunting
When the Sunday morning sun hands out sunburns like maternity ward newborns, I sprint through that neonate heat. At the junction of Love & Am I Alive, I […]
I Left My North Oakland Shadow
Published in Someone Tell Us Where We’re Going: Poets Wanted Anthology 2020 (2020) and Still Human (Falkenberg Press, 2025)
We Smile Back
The lamps in our lives gaslight our eyes until we walk out the screen door to welcome autumn moonlight into the sweep of our sight gazing upon the […]