fossil hymn 

the wooden chest in my
bedroom holds all types
of ocean-- too alive
to be a graveyard--
haunted by the spirits 
of sea urchins who 
now spend their days in
a desperate
search for their needles--
i open the drawers 
& open my
mouth to let the fossilized 
sharks teeth sing 
through my jaws-- 
they carry
words without syllables--
without tongues--
full of sand & old secrets
about where to bury yourself
to  become a fossil--
the skeletons of the dried
sea horses interlock their
tails & try to float
out the window-- but
i always catch them before
they can escape-- i tell
them this is where the
oceans are now-- 
waves crash in the third
drawer of our wooden
chest-- 
my father & i stole
the ghosts off the
beach so that we
could have a special place
to get lost in-- 
sometimes
when i'm trying to sleep
i hear it singing a song
that we sing in church around
lent or maybe it's advent--
it's a kind of purple song
that reminds me 
of the inside of conch shells--
like a throat or the soft
belly of a toad--
this song tastes like
blue cotton candy or maybe
like putting a dollop
of honey on the end of your tongue
the song melts
until it bleeds away entirely
to the faint hush of car tires
on the road outside my 
window at night-- there's somehow
always a car passing my-- headlights 
blaring like polished tiger shells--
on mornings when i feel like 
the world is too much to eat 
i take out the sharks teeth
& replace my own teeth
with them one by one-- i
use the needle-nosed pliers
to yank out my human teeth & 
i sing with the
razor teeth of grandfather 
sharks & the birds outside
the window remember the song
from sitting outside
a church somewhere but
they too can't recall exactly
where they last heard
a melody so old & purple