Boiled Hotdogs

Jul 05, 2026

Boiled hot dogs, alone

on the Fourth of July.

Vague festivities

echo up the hill

and skip across the lake—

grey, white and blue,

she mirrors the explosions

we paid for but never wanted.

A hornet’s nest

in the half sunken porch corner.

Periodic buzzing.

Hold it, chicken.

Let smonky momma handle this.

Tennis

“Always the Same”

You could stop me from speaking,

lay your hands on me,

pin me up against the windowsill,

remove me from my thorax.

“What’s it smell like, chicken?

Yum… hornet juice.”

In spite of all my rolling~

I didn’t make it far from the tree~~

a fire too close to the root~~~

extinguished by the same hand

only when the flavor of that smoke sours.