Cottages of dead leaves, revolutionary war barracks
and all our mother's phoenix scales. 

I finally set out to build my own home
in the autumn roasting afternoon
from dead leaves stacked delicately
one on top of
the other--
I sorted them each by color so that
the inside was cozy brown and smelled
like the bellies of toads 
and the outside flashed the red scales
of phoenix and cat fish tails.
My neighbors called me an artist
called me a poet
called me a piglet with
walls of straws and sticks 
and not enough bricks to
case myself into my own home.
They called me the anchor and 
wrote me letters on the backs 
of fat leaves-- rolled their words up
like scrolls to mail to me on the backs
of moths and toads.
said I was building a cottage to 
be a vessel to God.
said I was a martyr. A dead leaf martyr.
A goddess. 
A wolf. 
I finished by sunset which was
earlier than it should have been but
still too late--
and I missed the way the lamps lite
the corners of our room
and I missed the way August 
puts our short hair in curlers
and reminds me of the the
three times I could turn myself
into a braid-- sat on the table
in the kitchen while my mother 
crocheted my brown hair
into the tails of the fish
and the phoenix--
into dead leaves and the thick
tasseled thighs of the oak trees.
All I needed was a dirt floor cottage
for myself.
I had just wanted a place alone
to work. One room. One room. 
One room-- feeling my hair grow
itself into braids and the ghost
of all my mothers tear the leaves
from the walls each night
and yell to me 
Come out, come out, come out
your are DAUGHTER
you are PHOENIX and FISHTAILS
you are DOLLHOUSE
One room. One blanket and an open
side like a doll house so that everyone
could see the dance I put on each morning
when I get ready-- count the layers
of my own skin come alive 
one by
one by 
one by--
How my hair grows again so that I
have to shave off the braids in mirror--
and my hair falls off in leaves
on the dirt floor--
I walk outside thick socked and waist
deep in leaves from the 
destruction caused by all my mothers
the night before--
I want them to see me like
I see myself--
loose-armed and pose-able
and un-braided--
no I'm not a doll. No, I'm
not a girl but I put myself here
for you to move my body however
you think it would move 
in the walls of a leaf-cottage-- of
these barracks--
see this is not a home or a bunker--
It only has three sides and no roof.
Bring your children. Teach them
about arms and dead leaves and hair.
Teach them how I sleep like 
a revolutionary war soldier--
slid into my bunk like a metal 
sheet of cookies baking
throughout the night and yet still
cold-- I lay gold brown-leaf--
toad belly and
listening to the men
breathe above and below me--
at least my I live my barracks alone--
despite the ghosts of the soldiers
pacing in the attic
back and forth and back and forth
and the hoards of mothers who
come to visit me and beg
me to give up this state--
teach your children that it best
to fight a revolution from
a dirt floor wrapped in a blanket
crocheted by all your mothers.
That it is best to cut off your braids
and pretend they were always just
leaves-- best to make homes
with three walls because the neighbors will
want to see what you do anyway--
it is better to not leave them to guess--
they'll make you out to be a wolf
a goddess or all three
piglets stuffed under layers of leaves.
By the next morning there will only be me.
I'll remain seated on the dirt floor
without even three walls to call
my cottage. My barracks. 
All my mothers came to take the leaves
in the night with the wind
their father had given them--
I'll put my hair back on one phoenix scale
at a time and the toads will gather
and ask if I still want to the letters
or if they should just
take them straight to God--
the soldiers will take sticks 
and build their own forts above the
Valley below-- away from where their
mothers can still remember them--
Oh! And I'll be here in the dead leaves
and the dirt letting
you all call me WOLF
and daughter until I build these three walls again
when autumn roasts the afternoon.