when i grow up i want to a park pavilion 

when i grow up i want
to be a park pavilion--
the kind that holds the night
sky up like the great mast of
a sail boat made of egg cartons
& rubber bands--
i'll collect the initials 
of young lovers in
my body-- feels the etching
of their hearts beat
faster as they kiss beneath me.
when it rains sudden in
august the girls who swing
too high on the big kid swings
& the boys who hang upside
down on the monkey bars will 
crowd beneath me & make pews
out of the wooden
picnic benches & i'll feel
their bodies soft up against mine--
they won't talk to each other because
girls don't play with boys 
& the swings have already taken
her to the tops of the trees--
she has no where left to see.
my throat will be wide
enough for birthday parties
& there will always be a kid
who shows up uninvited--
he was just at the park with his baby-
sitter & decided to join in--
he'll blew out a candle &
eat the flame-- swallowed like
gnat wings--
underneath my body it's everyone's
birthday but no one is ever a year
older-- it's just an excuse
to light candles.
look at the squirrels as
they scurry across
my forehead-- trying to find
a halo--
my body will be the kind of religion
built out of the inconspicuous practice
of love--
in october when everyone's
bodies get accustomed to
living in desks again
i will press
my thumb to the sets of
initials still carved 
into my collar bones--
she'll return
to take back her kisses--
fill her pockets with them--
all different colors--
some the shade of bruises &
others as vibrant red as 
the apples that start blusing
in the sun--
she swallows them whole
so no one will
take them again-- she sits
in the park pavilion--
my body & she writes
a poem on her iPhone--
& dreams of sleeping there
in my skeleton-- laying
out on the cold cement floor of
my figure--
she traces circles on
the ground with a branch--
she writes her name invisible
but i grab onto it--
press it to my chest & fold it
into an air plane--
& when she leave me i will have 
the memory of her body--
oh when i grow up
i want to be a park pavilion--
my hair will grow
moss from the rain-- your
foot steps will leave me echoing
with ghosts &
the night will teach me
how to fold my pillars
inward & sleep with the
light in my ceiling on--
it's calling the moths
home like an audacious 
& brilliant mother--
oh how she burns their
wings.