two poems

"Enclosures" and "Night Walk, Lower East Side"

Enclosures

Idiot music 
seeps from a third-floor window—

ripped screen flapping like 
a flag rotting in a field

of faded yellow stucco. 

*

To sit in a room
as June sun withdraws across

the ceiling and walls;
and to stay in the poem 

even as each word recedes. 

*

At night, the sound of  
water running in the creek 

behind the grotto
where Our Lady’s blue gaze cuts 

through moth-entangled spotlight.

Night Walk, Lower East Side 

A blue neon cross
flickers in the window 

of a Lutheran church 
on a graffitied corner 

in Chinatown.
That’s the anchor—

I hold it in mind. 
Not for holiness, 

but for symmetry. 
A compass 

to guide me 
through the city’s 

surging frequencies.
Darkness flowering 

out of an alley;
traffic glint

on barbed wire.

Both of these poems previously appeared in Spectra. If you’re not subscribed to Spectra, please consider doing so, and their print issues are works of art unto themselves. Highly recommended!