dissemble yourself--
write instructions in crayon hieroglyphs 
obituaries and hand fulls of cranberries

you will need staples
to make a quilt out of construction
paper-- sleep in skirts gripped
by hot glue--
i have a do-it-yourself
kind of body-- these wrists
are a craft project
but we were wrong to think
there's only one
way to piece
ourselves back together--
i write the instructions
and print them on the
front door to my house
so you know walking into
me is not like walking into 
a gallery or a coloring book--
you become accustomed to 
these hieroglyph alphabets 
i perfected in third grade
when i believed in such things
as Pharaohs and the cut
pieces of pyramids--
the first collage i noticed 
was the poetry of an obituary page

-- 

1. 
take off your bracelets 
and your earring in the jar 
by the door-- you might mistake
them for knives or pins
or your grandmother's sewing 
machine making corsets in the corner--
take off you shoes
but always wear socks--

2.
you will learn to share--
im the neighbor who knocks
on the back window 
with gravel-- shouts for
a bar of soap or
two hand fulls 
of fresh cranberries--
you will get used to saying 
"no" and watching
me turn gravel into fruit
from a transfiguration table--

3.
don't eat the cranberry orange
muffins i leave
on your porch-- your feral cat 
femme fatale-- wait until
i bring the tea kettle and see step
6 for further action

4. 
teach your saplings to stand like
Osiris who married his sister 
and ruled a kingdom on crayon
pictures-- i named my garden
Isis so she'll always grow closer
to you

5.
don't touch my tomatoes
even when they grow in through 
your window-- that's called 
temptation and we're 
Egyptians now
and no one is named Eve to
take the blame for it--
they're waiting to turn
into cranberries-- 
write me a note from the
obituaries like i taught you
write poetry 
i don't read English--

6.
if the tomatoes turn to apples
it means i want you to kiss me
and don't kiss me like
a neighbor or a brother
i want to be kissed
like an obituary

7.
eat the muffins this time
i baked them with tomatoes 
that were also apples
and also full of your bracelets
that turned into strawberry
jelly candies in the jar by the door

8.
study your hieroglyph alphabets for
me-- you will be tested because
as i said i don't speak English--
if you want to put this 
body together in someway
that makes sense between us--
we'll need a common language
and you're most like a Pharaoh 
of anyone i've ever kissed

9.
see 4 only this time teach your saplings
to bend like Nut the goddess of the sky
and the heavens where we pull
the obituary headlines down
onto a page--

10.
see 6 again and again
until our kisses taste like 
tomatoes

11.
turn the paper over
and write your own instructions--
take candy from the jar that was
once your bracelets 
and earrings-- stick
them to your neck with the 
jelly filling-- these
sugar pearls into cranberries

12.
now you know a way to put
me together-- fold the instructions
into a paper airplane and toss
it into the branches of 
the tree we named 
Osiris--

before you love someone
let them teach you how
you can put them together--
dissemble and re-assemble 
yourself enough times
to fall in love with new bodies--
new trees-- new tomato 
muffins turning
into candy-- the collage of
obituaries where we picked our
names-- 
we
do-it-your-self
Pharaohs 
we don't have a hieroglyph for
Adam because Eve was the only
one brave enough to use
a mouth
and Isis loved her brother
for a kingdom
see step 6 again--