I have two poems out in White Ash Literary Magazine, but since the journal is print only, I wanted to share the poems here. They’re two of my favorites.

Invisible Daughter and Ghost Dog

My wife hates when she does it —
her face goes blank, her limbs slacken,
and then she blinks out of sight.
Behold, my invisible daughter

or behold her as I do during these times
by listening for telltale signs she’s about —
the soft padding of her feet, her anxious breath
as she pretends she wholly gone

and not just temporarily unseeable.
If she goes outside, you can still hear her
summoning Cinnamon, our erstwhile Chihuahua
just recently upgraded to ghost status.

“I go invisible to see him,” my daughter says
and I play along, pretending she doesn’t
also get a crazy kick out of startling people
and rooting around in drawers with no fear

of being caught, except by me, possessed
of nearly supernatural hearing. It suits
me well, given my daughter’s predilection
for vanishing, and my old dog’s mysterious whines.

I often sit with him in my lap, and I only
know he’s there by feeling his bony back,
his freezing nose, his tattered fur.
My daughter smiles in approval.

At least, I think she does.

____________________________________________

The Tallest Man In The Room

Emboldened by bourbon
and an alarmed biological clock,
she–sunny, petite–
approached him.

His shoe was half
the length of her lower leg.
If she willed it, she could shrink
herself down to doll-size
and place herself
in his pocket, there to dance
with his loose change.

She looked up.
“Hi,” she said.

He looked down.
“Hi,” he said back.

Thus it began.