In this life, I should have been most happy. Nary a care in the world, save for the constant pressure of having to marry the need for a mate with a tune.

Tonight the cicadas are deafening. / Nothing to do but lean into despair / the way one leans into a mirror.

On Linkedin, I see you soldiered some again, / and I imagine you running in the Iraq desert dusk. / When we were young, you sent a tiny, Korean flower / from your base, pressed between two slips of paper you left blank...

I peer into the little darkness / her flesh holds, // thinking how a person can’t stop herself

Each month comes the reminder / of the gash God made in me. / I like to think He made it / with one finger, the way an artist / will reach right into a painting / and finish it off.