Selected Works, Koss

Aldi: Simple Things 

We dawdled in the heavenly vegetable aisle,
palming the zucchini, playfully argued about onions,
the appropriateness of red versus sweet—to cook or not.
We were both poor, but groceries cost half that of U.S.
Shopping’s a chore I normally hate  but was elated
sashaying with you at my side, then drifting away
with cart, slowly coming together at aisle’s crossing
after I dallied, staring dumbly at foreign names
for tomato paste, which I needed to make mafé.
Product naming was confusing—we were juggling
three versions of English, but it amplified our otherness,
and the tingle I felt in my torso and limbs,
nervous anticipation. Hadn’t cooked for anyone in years.
Us making food decisions. Remembered how easy joy is.

*Originally published, North Dakota Quarterly

Skins

you wanted it raw
not precious
sex too,
the space between
 
tattoos crudely sketched
hieroglyph armies
march of flesh
just the skins
the jist of it
 
witch’s symbols
etched into digits
your warnings
rough stars
scarred into arms
tattoo artist traced
from your drawings
your face too
what you did
to it
a primal expression
or grievance
just name it longing

*Originally published, Chiron

what max said before climbing into her spaceship

what about the velocity of things
the ever-fleeting
 
flame-ejected titanium shell
battery jitter and drain / defunct-human touch
 
memory flakes / show-and-tell facebook
touchscreen splendor / fingerdy-linger
 
tweedledee twitter / gaba to creatine
ping pong brain thing / tweedledum marketing
 
dumbed-down googley everything
machine unlearning / lowest common
 
denominators / normalized
violence sublimated into viral cuisine
 
the new connectivity
the new reflexivity / the new mediocrity
 
how is it everyone is doing so great
marketing prosperity / so much perfection
 
at the center of things
rate me / rate her / rate him / oh ranking queens
 
like / heart
rage face / emoji heaven
 
eternal fabric / social soul medium
reality drivel / cacophony of tedium
 
dead narrative
confetti attention / scatter box
 
soul flattened to ME
soul flattened to screen

*Originally published, Feral

Five for 

five months since you killed yourself
my body-clock does its dirty work
 
           five magpies form
                        a door in the sky
           their invitation
                        to die
 
woke at five / soaked / remembered the date
anniversaries / the dread of eleven
remembrance gutted my chest / failed
 
to follow you / into the hollow / I sprawled
gum-stuck to mattress / beached-perca limp
flickering tapes rolled on cue
 
what he said / what she said / what you said
what you did / what I should have done
 
five isn’t everyone’s heaven
declared my neighbor, cruising his golf cart
hissing scripture
it’s unnatural / a sin
against god
she’s so selfish / she didn’t take her meds
it’s never that bad / why didn’t she pray to God
until I finally said enough
you never even met her
 
           five magpies form a door in the sky
                        their invitation to die
 
there’s a flaw
in people / they worship
shame and blame
you knew shame like the skin
of your cheek
 
           shame for the kiss / shame for the sickness
           shame for the look / and imagined sin
           shame     shame     shame for the skin
           shame with the belt / shame for the pleasure
           shame for the fat and shame for the thin
 
           shame for the love / shame for the art
           shame for the illness  / shame for the birth
           shame for the sex and shame for the flesh
           shame     shame
           shame with the fist
 
           shame for the joy and shame for the tears
           shame for the patient
           shame for his death / shame for your own breath
 
 
           five magpies form a door in the sky
                        their invitation
                                   to die
 
there are no assholes in heaven
the guy in the golf cart is mine Max

*Originally published, Feral

Seven for (Your Voice, Ours) 

I remember your voice
Key of G minor
The vibrating throat tonic
Euphonic synthesis
 
Magpie’s sorrow psalm
Ruffled Janus head of sound
Back-tilted, sweet and lamenting
In-between life notes
 
You, healer of wounds and wounded
Joined by my latent vibrato
Alternating melodies
Harmonic blips in the scourge
 
‘Til Saturn’s sickle
Slashed the air
Arrested the chords
Leaving a whoosh in the wake
 
A fissure, the infinite wound
Between musical spheres
The devil’s score

*Originally published, Dreich

Wuthering Heights erasure with envelope, Wite-Out , and coffee

Wuthering Heights erasure with whiteout and digital embellishments

Photo Cemetery Cherub

Photo Ashes

Koss (she, them, they) is a queer, mixed-race poet, writer, artist, and asemic writer with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Their debut chapbook, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect is due out from Diode Editions in ’24.