Remain in the light, though it may waver.
Remain in the gentle grasp of hands you trust.
Remain open-mouthed, wide-eyed, arms spread to possibility.
Though dark oceans are rising, remain afloat.
Remain at your post: at the blackboard, on the shop floor, hand on the plough.
Remain upright, remain in motion, remain ever on course.
Remain gorgeous, remain lyrical, remain for the last encore.
Remain outraged at cruelties that gouge through our humanity.
Remain for the casualties, chant their names in the streets.
For all the barbed words that would hook you, remain thick-skinned.
Shoulder your remaining hurt and empty, bring it with you.
Foothold, slip, foothold: remain focused on ascending.
Remain calm in the belly.
Remain eye-to-eye.
Remain sane.Remain.
Selected Poems
“Behind the Homeless Family Shelter,” A Quiet Courage, 3/25/16
“What the Horses Hear,” Poets Reading the News, 3/8/18
“On Learning that Ho Chi Minh Once Worked as a Baker at the Parker House Hotel in Boston,” Carve Poetry Prize winner, Spring 2018
“A Can of Pinto Beans,” Pangyrus, 4/8/19
“Pink Trombone,” Rise Up Review, Spring 2019
“If Emily Dickinson Had Used the Dewey Decimal System,” Riddled with Arrows,” Spring 2019
“Incidents,” Whale Road Review, Vol. 18
“Lawn Care,” The Summerset Review, Spring 2020
“Hodie Christus Natus Est,” Rust + Moth, Spring 2020
“Love Construct in the Covidicene,” Pacifica Literary Review, Vol. 17.1
“Everything that Rises Must Converge,” Mason Street Review, Spring 2021
“Surface Tension,” Claw & Blossom, March 2021
“Sweet Blue,” Lunch Ticket, Summer/Fall 2021
“Reading from the Desert Fathers at the Laundromat,” The Sun, January 2022
“Tadpoles,” Bracken, June 2022
“All Saints’ Day,” Atticus Review, April 2023
“Ad Astra + Graftings,” Post Road, November 2023
“Abundance,” Valparaiso Poetry Review, December 2023
“When I Wrapped the Blood Pressure Cuff Over His Crude Swastika Tattoo,” Rise Up Review, Winter/Spring 2024
“Stung,” Ballast, Spring 2024,
“Cove + Ides,” DIALOGIST 2024
“November,” The Inflectionist Review, August 2024
“After the Prado,” The Indianapolis Review, Winter 2025
“Melanoma,” Midway Journal, January 2025
“Undergrowth,” RockPaperPoem, March 2025
“Altitude,” runner-up in the Action/Words Contest in Poetry, Midway Journal, April 2025
“Spectrum,” Psaltery & Lyre 2025
“Red-Eye,” Rise Up Review, Winter 2025
Selected Essays + Prose
“Exit Wound,” Solstice Literary Magazine, Fall 2019, selected as a notable essay in Best American Essays 2020
“Barriers,” Scoundrel Time, June 2020
“Pinsky,” Complete Sentence, October 2020
“Scapula,” Pithead Chapel, Volume 10, Issue 7
“A Murmuration of Stones,” Pangyrus, September 2021
“Russell,” Apple in the Dark, Fall 2022
“Marta,” Tahoma Literary Review, Spring 2024
“Gravity,” Sheila-Na-Gig, Summer 2024
“How to Knit a Trans-Solidarity Scarf,” The McNeese Review, June 2025