the hurricanes will
name themselves after us

i want to live so
loudly that the wind blows
my body apart like the
head of a dandelion-- 
let the people come 
makes wishes
on my limbs-- 
take my femurs
to use for oars for the flood--
we will
live full of storm-- full
of cracked-egg rain 
& jaw breaker
hail-- 
cracking our
teeth into pollen-dust-- 
to live as a poet is to 
watch your body roar gold &
then thin out into
soft white flecks of word--
you become so weak you 
have nothing left to do but
let the wind take each of your
words &
plant new bodies for
them to dare call weeds--
oh yes we grow like weeds-- a contagious 
kind of bone--
what have you known about
how the hurricanes name themselves?
out in the atlantic their bodies
knot into fists-- 
they tell their father's to spin
them on the merry-go-round--
or twist them on the swing set--
tighter & tighter
& they hollow out their
centers to call an eye & that
is where they sit to decide on a
name 
& what better to name a hurricane
than after 
a girl whose eyes are full
of lightning-- who breaths
louder than thunder 
& stumbles
as her body shakes the pollen
from all the plants on earth--
live so loudly that the hurricanes
fight over your name--snap tree
like wish bones to haunt
your mouth-- open wide to
eat the eye of the storm--
live live live 
like a dandelion--
unashamed to exist only 
for wishes & falling to pieces--
live like a beautiful disease
that takes root in an open mouth--
open your own mouth only
to catch hale in your teeth--
the fragments of moons shrinking
& falling to earth
out of their assigned orbits--
when you are finally tired & you
have scattered each one of your bones
the children of the hurricane
will come out of their hiding place
to collect the words you
leave strewn about the streets--
the ones that bent stop signs 
& ripped the red from traffic lights--
don't ever stop even when it hurts--
living loudly is like watching the 
world scream but when you
open your own mouth
all you can do is shake the
ground full of thunder--
& the hurricanes all pick my name
this year & they read my
poetry & throw my words 
violent tongues 
& catastrophic laughter--