Stop

 
Elise always knows when I am drinking
because of redness in my cheeks,

the glaze in my eyes. After a New
Year’s party, I sleep on a rough

cotton couch a couple
hours before leaving. I do not lie

to the cop when he asks
if I have been drinking. He tells me to stop

at the next gas station to buy coffee.
How lucky I am to have this warning,

to not be tested. My life’s trajectory
at the mercy  of a strange man’s fingertips,

his tongue, the kind of night he is having.
I drive into the darkness, to the next

exit, where I wait for that same darkness
to pass, to turn the key into the ignition.


---

June, 2020


Standing in heat in the protest
masks preceding vax
      followed the chalk outline
to the school bell
ringing     I didn’t touch
the concrete     (fear)  
rough scrapes      toothaches    
edges of social  
-ization    of June   in June
whatever  time we made
work in the throngs
of a fervent following–
spit in the air
everywhere it
glistens in the grass


---

After High School, Ian Got Ripped

 
Soon after, he was arrested for fraud–
both surprises, though every day

he lugged a tuba down the long
green halls of high school. Ian,

who had no friends, lived in
the gym after graduation, smoking

weed to heavy metal tunes, tatting
up, bulking. Before that, though,

I was in the restroom with him
once when he picked up a rock

on the top of a urinal cake and–
to show that he could– swallowed it.