Poetry

I know your mother doesn’t think / I’m the smartest person alive, / Father said. That’s why I try / to learn a new word everyday / by reading the dictionary.

If someone told you to jump / in the water while you’re on a bridge, / Father said, would you do it?

let’s start this way / below the surface tangled in mud / choked / by grasses thick as braids 

She stood a foot from me / two futures hung in the air between / us

Because some years count double. / Because we were bobbing for apples / in gasoline.

Inside great stadiums / we jostle. // We watch our televisions / only a few hours / before throwing them out.