From Fierce Geometry, which was published in December 2022 by Get Fresh Books Publishing.

Chilly: spring water on dust-streaked feet.

Summer sky mosaic by an oak branch. Look,
he points to a band of thunderheads, purple light.

A swaying rope bridge, gaps between planks.

Oil rainbow shimmers in the creek. Near
bubbles from beneath a rock: crawdad.

On honeysuckle stigma: beads of nectar.

Sunlight filtered by grey barn slats
falls like splinters of hay on my brother’s shirt.

Dead robin’s open throat, a red ant.

Shepherd bitch, teats swollen with milk,
wanders left field between third and second base.

My hands ride a tree’s gnarled bark.
The best apples always out of reach.

From a burning nest, a swarm of hornets.
My father stained with kerosene and cut grass.

Sometimes hot tar looks like elephant skin.

From the window of a Greyhound, orange scars
of eroded Southern clay. In Charlottesville

I dial a number from a public phone,
a call for an ex-con on the bus,

They let him out. He’s on the bus, headed home.