Losing Kate

I got two more poems and a photograph published in my University’s literary journal, Dialogue. Because they don’t publish them online, here is the photo and my two poems.

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confusion

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A Beer in Nagoya

As I pour

jasmine tea into

small cups with

ceramic koi fish,

my dad tells me stories

about Japan—about a

custom where restaurants

give you cups just larger

than a shot glass

and a beer.

You have to fill the glass of your

companion—never yourself—

unless offended by their inattention.

I can see myself walking down

the streets after a night of beer

like my father did.

Though it wouldn’t be my

first cigarette, I’d follow

in his footsteps down

Nagoya—wasted—

blowing smoke

toward dull stars

after singing

Take on Me

in karaoke.

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Incandescent

Oxford’s two examples of incandescent:

1. Plumes of incandescent liquid rock
2. Mravinsky’s incandescent performance of Siegfried’s funeral march

Both sentence fragments—

fragments that could end the same way:

glistened with the hollow glow of an empty summer night.