Three of my poems appear in the latest issue of Subtropics magazine (Issue 36/37, Spring/Summer 2025), “Unruled,” “Barred Island,” and “Swimming South off Key West.” Chloe Cook and Taylor Light interviewed me about the poems. You may read that interview here.

Barred Island 


Low tide, I rest upon a throne 
Of granite grained like rainy skies, 
My site above 
A murderous sea, 
My seat lathed down 
By generations of weather, 
My wealth such ocean spoils 
As spill from interstellar Atlantic cold.

A causeway to the island,
Now drowned and impassable,
Once led the way across.
I cannot walk. I have to swim. 

My sloshing tidal pool 
Is thronged with knotted wrack. 
Oarweed garlands 
Ancient steps  
To waters below, 
And I, a meager lord, 
Hope no more to hold 
A throne grown meaningless. 

The air is warm. 
The bluffs above 
Are sparred with spruce 
Whose roots knot bony cliffs.
The idle ocean currents swirl and ring 
Like churning choirs of glass. 

In shallows, unnerving 
Shadows of hawks slither along ravines 
Of sunken boulders
Where seagrass sways in Hadean meadows. 

The tide will crest, and soon my perch 
Will be awash 
In hypothermic water, 
And while my throne’s submerged 
I’ll swim and hope to reach the island 
Where my tomb has been installed. 

Each time I fail, return, and wait.
I keep my watch as sunlight goes. 
I know each fault 
And riff of stone for miles 
Along the foggy headland, deathly realm 
Reimagined now in sunset ochres and lit filaments of copper, 
A vision of light that leaves me as I rise. 

I’ll hope to reach the island now 
By once more daring waters that make me flinch, 
That freeze my skin, from toes to knees, 
To waist and chest, and close my eyes, 
To tingle of scalp and burn of arms, 
To reach the island that I’ve seen far-off, 
To swim away from here, the place 
I once believed that I would rule forever.