catching eels 

i hid in my father's socks. the airplanes landed
as birds & all the people who were once inside,
turned to push pins. i spat out my name 
on the sidewalk & watched it wriggle back
into the damp earth. we are all unfortunately 
just making do, aren't we? well, unless you have
a house with wings. a god came to the warf 
to lay eggs. i was the size of a snapping turtle.
tore my own holes in the ozone & said, "take that!"
it's no use trying to sew what cannot
be sewn. instead, my brothers & i shared destructions
like broken bread. waking up in the dead of night
& shaking him to say,"do you hear the eels?"
he never did. i was always the one who had
to get the net & stumble barefoot 
into a spotlight to capture them. writhing 
they shouted prophecies. i tried to write them down
but i only had a flip phone. a boyfriend was 
perched in the cypress trees. the prophecies were always
about the end of manhood. i thought, "thank god."
felt that grain of gender boiling in me.
a hand through rice. a hand through sand.
the ocean yawned & i saw all the eyes. went back
to the water bed. heard sirens sing. eels 
in the attic & eels in the windows. i could never
catch all of them. eventually, you just have to sleep.