Betrayed by cheese, my heart burns in summer’s darkness. Still, I want more cheese.

Remy Shand in my head. Death flits in a dream. Hard pass. Take a message.

All y’all, I don’t want to be up right now, but up I am so howdy.

Ever wonder why we crave what we crave at night? The fridge seems to know.

Folks here pronounce hurricane so it rhymes with hurry come, so don’t wait.

The world is harshing my gig. Still, I soldier on in Gen X armor.

I ate all the cheese in the fridge. It was good, and I’m a little shit.

Water, water, where’s the water, we ask an imagined aquifer.

Bringing soda cake to a Utah funeral. Who the fuck are you?

What will you conjure today? Second wife, third heaven? Lord, have mercy.

Remy Shand in my dead. Heads flit in a dream. We pass slant messages.

Go out or stay in. How should I know? My heart is a revolving door.

Deseret is still here shadowing our maps the way clouds darken land.

Almost asleep again. Good time to write down everything that matters.

On aging: My upper lip shrinks like a slug doused in salt. Goodbye, face.

Can’t write fast when the heart burns: from cheese or from love. This is just to say.

Is it light where you are? Here, I see the stars and Elon’s satellites.

Tod: a unit of wool by weight, a load, a bushy mass of ivy.

Why did I write about Tod? Who cares? Why shouldn’t I write about Tod?

Nightmares slip from our folds when we wake. Still, we dream a dream of dreaming.

Got your syllables right here, baby. Seventeen of them. But whose count—

How is language a sage sea studded with prickly-pear cacti in bloom?

Fuck the day. Fuck the month. Fuck the year. What planet am I on? Tell me.

Only Utah light is the light that lets the light in. So they tell us.

Moqui marbles take shape in Snow Canyon. Not yet round but getting there.

Some days, everything is blech. Do not despair. You can unblech your life.

All the stem cells in the world can’t rebaby this skin. Boo wa wa wa.

Things I crave: beans and rice, world peace, lists that aren’t trite. Five more syllables.

These aren’t haiku. They’re American Sentences, some rural af.

These aren’t haiku. They’re American Sentences, some Utah af.

Fucking off my time deciding if it should be af or AF.

Outside My Window—

A child slides a rolled piece of paper into his pocket like a gun.

Old relationships glide through the room like ghosts, and they haunt only you.

Winter night, who needs the moon when fast-food signs backlight these barren trees?

In Eastern Washington, we like our liquor and our weapons concealed.

Far off, a plane in the blue sky is smaller and whiter than a louse.

We compare scars: some no more than pebbles, others supple blades of grass.

As I weed the carrot bed, a spider crawls into my shirt and rests.