From the cover letter: "Literary fragments where I tackle distorted [redacted] symbols, deeply alienated intimacy, and, finally, cooptation. It seems too much to say that they dwell within the masculine grotesque but—I think they point there."

Entreaty | Arrangement | Engagement

§5, p.66:

... Knowing patterns
of the fading lights in the sky. When they collapse,
it wrecks whole worlds. I just ruin a holiday party.
One can question too sincerely when another
is still laughing. I did not finish the drink. ...

Microwave Background

My neighbor wants to kill his moles,
and I do not mean the moles burrowed
so gently into his own skin

unless his skin is the earth

which it is.

How much do you have to want it.

I see him later with a sackful,
overtly joyful, going back...

Burrowing Habit

The patent fear upon which we let rest our biases
creeps upon us like a network of knowing cells.
A drop of Pom spreads throughout a white shirt
in the wash, forces slipping red beads all along…

Jacob J Billingsley

Selected work