My Work

Thinking of Ahmaud

A photo of Ahmaud Arbery. The headshot is sepia toned, but his smile is bright. He rests his hand on the bill of his baseball cap.

A Sunday afternoon in February. Maybe it was a warm day in Georgia when Ahmaud Arbery went for a jog. Maybe there was a light breeze to keep him cool as he found his stride. ⁣
⁣
A Sunday afternoon in February. Maybe Ahmaud would have arrived back home. Stretched and drank a glass of water. Maybe plan the rest of his evening. Maybe if he got the chance.⁣
⁣
A Sunday afternoon in February was stolen from Ahmaud. His week. His month. Every remaining second of his life stolen. Stolen by two white men who waited with a shotgun and a magnum. Two white men so sure that a Black man jogging must be a suspect. That a Black man couldn’t merely be jogging and exist. Be Black and exist. ⁣
⁣
On a Sunday afternoon in February, Ahmaud was lynched. Shot and murdered. When the police arrived and a white man stood with blood splattered on his hands…the police let him and his son go home when Ahmaud never got the chance.⁣

My Work

What They Have in Common

She once told me that when you see
a monarch butterfly pass you
someone is saying hello from heaven.
The one who died in winter, gone some place
beyond the clouds and the stars
leaving messages of I love you
with fluttering orange wings.
She said it was a way to take comfort
and I shook my head.

I told her she was wrong.
If the dead whispered to anything
they’d tell their soft secrets to moths.
Gray wings unfurled large and streaked silver,
floating through the summer night air
towards the bright half-formed moon.
Looking for home, looking for life.
And only because they can’t reach the light
seemingly lost, they seek poor imitations
glowing in the dark.

This poem was originally published in littledeath Literary Magazine, Issue 2

My Work

Denature

My biology professor
corrects herself saying
“Sorry, nothing dies,
instead we call it denature.”
Photosynthesis
even little kids learn
the denaturing
of the world around us.
We watch young leaves
darken in late summer,
turn to piles of deep
crimson and gold,
some brittle and brown
by late October.
Kids learning,
then throwing themselves,
rolling around in all those
tiny deaths.

She corrects herself again,
and goes on to explain
that the chloroplast
becomes unstable,
it denatures,
leaving behind the carotenoids.
The natural colorful pigment
hidden greedily by
healthy green chloroplast.
I jot down my notes
finding myself back,
circling denature
again and again.
When my summer is over,
when I denature,
I hope to leave
something behind
as lovely as those
cascading reds and yellows.

Denature was originally published in Black Heart Magazine October 2017 Issue: Summer’s End

My Work

April 17th

a photo of a house key and relates to the imagery in the poem

Their shadows brushed
our thresholds, our window panes
as they marched down
our city streets.
They demanded to hold
our keys and deeds
promising to protect us
from the enemy.

We became refugees in our own city
as we filtered onto our roads,
herded from our homes.

A deep crunch was heard
as it rolled across the earth,
the tank passing us and
my mother clasped her hands, praying
that it hadn’t been the bones
of a fallen neighbor.

They screamed hurray, hurray,
as they sprayed it in our blood,
on our buildings.
Our eyes abandoned wells,
as their celebration began.
A deep crimson coating
our streets.

The very color bleeding
into the noose
that encircled
their necks.

This is a revised version of the poem that was originally published in Poetry Quarterly, Issue 9

Blog

Writing and Networking

Networking is a struggle for me.

We hear it over and over that networking is something we all should be doing. For our careers, it’s absolutely vital.

In the moment, I do pretty well with making conversation, asking the right questions, reading social cues, and actively listening. I genuinely enjoy learning more about other people and hearing their unique perspective on their profession.

It’s the internal crisis before networking that gets me feeling uncomfortable.

What do we talk about?  Small talk, like the weather? Ugh.  How do I narrow down my job description, so it’s palatable?  What was a really good question to ask again?

Shit. Do I have my business cards?

Every niggling thought, every doubt just sprouts up. A few breathing exercises, a small pep talk, and a quick triple-checking that I have my business cards — I feel ready to go.

Continue Reading…