shipping & handling

weight yourself at the UPS store
up the street to discover how much
postage you will need--

steal your father's stamps--

he will not notice

adhere them each 
to the base of your neck--

while you're there
stuff envelops--

you'll want to take the cedar
with you-- the one you
once wrote a poem beneath--

another one will be big enough
to fit the entire night sky 
from that one evening in
the park pavilion when

we sat on the wooden picnic benches

talked about ice cream cones &
what we would do that summer--

don't forget to find
a cardboard box for each 
of the seasons we've had--

the snow the pummeled
the door frames-- asking
to sleep at the foot
of the bed--

those perfect autumns-- 
take all the leaves
& don't worry about
the shipping & handling--

it is imperative
that we take everything--

chewing packing peanuts
by the handful--

lately i taste nomadic--

peel tape off
my lips in the morning--

tell myself

no not today--

i have more time--

my address unwrites
itself--

"return" is a word full
of presumption

as if somehow this
room has swallowed enough
of me to be somewhere
to return to--

i have made a ghost
to haunt perhaps apartments
between 600-800$ a month
in garden city--

their bare bodies--
their clean counter tops--
their open windows--

i write their addresses
one after another 
down my own back--

so that they know 
i have a places i could
be shipped to--

back of the mail truck--
jostling next to all
these packages--

who writes letters anymore?

i want to fantasize that
back there i will 
lay in a meadow of
love letters-- of penpals
writing back from france--

in sixth grade
a tried to have a penpal
from france but they never 
wrote back--

i wonder if they have
my letter--

if they wrote to me
& never sent it--

if they decided to write
to someone else

if they know my address
& plan on returning--

can you return somewhere 
you haven't been yet?

i want you to know
that i think of you 
as a return address--

there are numbers 
in between your fingers 

& when we hold hands
i wipe 2s & 1s & 5s 
off on my thighs--

i don't want to write you down

i hope you are one of
those letters

the ones in the back
of the mail truck taking
me to an empty
apartment somewhere i will
soon think of returning to--

& when i get there
the first thing i will
do is open that package
with that night in it--

let the walls grow dark--
freckled with stars

sitting on top the wooden
park bench--

openning your envelop