You’ll Get There

and the anchovies will unleash their hooves
and the platypus will die trying
    but you’ll be there
and beat the odds
    like Mahler at 7:32 AM
or bottles of beer that are green
    with listening
    and
waiting
    stomachs like molasses
and gratitude like horny thoroughbreds
    gallant coffins
empty
    those streets unfurl, feel saintly dirty and sad

but these oceans
will rise
    and maybe you’ll be looking like
a scofflaw
in somebody else’s
country
    where fortitude and fornication
won’t matter as you approach old age
these violins
    that dachshund
or those kneecaps
    it all
will hurt
in the end
    and the glad
mix with
sadness
will fall like tears of joy
    as you realize and feel the relief of being one of many
like snowflakes in a sandstorm, like toenail clippings in a trashcan, like a tiny little bird who accidentally fell into the wing of an apartment building—you will silently cry for help as the world collapses, collides, and conjures something better, something
we can’t yet see—like you smiling at yourself in the mirror in spite of
it all

alive.

His first chapbook of poems, Empty Beer Cans: Quarantine Poems from Da Nang, Vietnam, was released in May 2022 by Alien Buddha Press. His second chapbook entitled Traveling the World (at the End of the World) was published in the 2024 Summer Micro-Chap Series by Ghost City Press.