Pizza slices I've folded myself into.

Mamas Delight Pizza knew our address and our order 
when we called for delivery.
The delivery boy was Mike and 
he drove a red car that resembled 
a coca cola can that had been
kicked up and down main street 
for a decade or so.
He carried the boxes on top of his head as
he approached and tucked the 
flying saucer dish of cheese fries
under his arm-- 
this man a mozzarella marinara 
ballerina poised at our front door.
This was back when
my dad "made" dinner" from
the holy trinity of the Airport Diner,
The Kutztown Tavern, and Mama's Delight Pizza.
We each had out method.
criss-crossed legs on the floor--
watched the termite tampered bones
of the house on Noble Street grow plumage
from my father's paint roller--
dipped it and handed it to me
to paint white the box
that was waiting to become a rain forest
waiting to become a kitchen
a staircase 
a corner 
a windowsill
waiting to become a family who folded
themselves into pizza slices 
and now paint their own bones
into themselves with the rollers
and the brushes-- sitting
on the floor in a circle--
suburban refugees stranded without 
cable television 
We told stories
and I folded myself
and my brother folded himself
and my father folded himself
together-- passing the crusts
like the bones of my grandfather
still walking back and forth
in what would become my room.
My father told us stories
between mouthfuls of sauce and cheese
and cardboard box and fry fingers
told us about what the night sky looked
like in Canada with his own father.
Somewhere mother folded herself
into a car on the way home from
work to fold herself into our circle too.
I made up stories about school
because I didn't have any real stories
to tell-- I was a dinosaur-- saber tooth
a girl in a blue hat knit by my mother
pouncing
on park benches-- fearless because
I didn't know I was fat yet 
Didn't know I wasn't supposed to
hesitate at how many times I fold myself
into pizza slices
I didn't know I was anything other
than a dragon tamer
and a paint roller 
and a cheese fry shoe lace string
pulled tight on my black Chuck Taylors
Just like daddy
I could still fold myself like
a pizza slice or an airplane
into anything-- tell my brother we
were Indians and rain dance 
in the rubble of the driveway.
I miss that house of bones where
my grandfather still lived in the
crusts of pizza and my father still
folded himself into the circle 
on the living room floor with us--
He asked me why I took the cheese off the 
pizza and I never had a good answer
other than that I liked how
squishy the dough felt beneath--exposed
and raw and so much like my own
skinned knees-- my own gums-- my
own blood pulsing to give
that house's bones feathers and 
femurs and fat in it's cheeks--
Our house has heavy bones now.
Collects orphaned mittens in the corners--
holds my elementary school crafts in her
belly-- eats all the cheese
I peeled off when pizza slices
when I was short and fat and skin-kneed--
filled her closets with times she meant
to cry but couldn't find a place to be alone--
keeps my grandmother's cat statues in the cabinets--
plays cable television like a 
elegy each morning.
My grandfather knocks on the walls
of my closet as he waits for
my father to order pizza again on a Friday. 
I never ate the cheese
and I don't eat pizza anymore
and my house is heavy heavy heavy
with all the pieces of ourselves
we've folded into her since the paint rollers.
I don't eat pizza anymore
but alone in my room I can still
peel my skin off like cheese--
remember my skinned knees
and tell stories to myself about being
a saber tooth girl or
an airplane--
Open my closet to find my grandfather.
Eat pizza in my poems.
Grow fat and heavy and fearless.