I watched my mother drain my father’s—
     drained, I watched, my latex gloves the same blue as my
father’s lung out of a tube stuck right into his
     running shoes, and soon I would be sprinting by
his side, the fluid neither blood nor

Elegy in a Yellow Kitchen

the saltwater
snail was not
a snail but
                           a boy who
                           fell in love with
                           me because of

Mountain Triquetra

bathroom stall, Pennsylvania Turnpike travel station near the Allegheny River

Three Reconstructions of an Anonymous Early 21st Century Poem

We came home to hordes of docile houseflies glazed 
and quivering on our West Side duplex window sills. 
 
It was the day a fellow carrier had died.
We hadn’t known her well, and well, 
 
the flies. We killed them all [...]

Caleb A.P. Parker

Selected work