rice cooker

i put the bees in their tuesday outfits 
so we could eat what was left
while they were preoccupied.
i don't want rice again
i want to put the catastrophe into grains
& pour curry over their heads.
the machine is a belly world.
picking gnats from the ceiling
& finding each is a piece of shrapnel.
on the television the world is eating itself 
with a spork. garbage disposal screaming.
i crave to devour as much hair as i can
before the time i turn thirty.
nothing is guaranteed though.
some people turn into bugs
before their fifth birthday.
some people open the front door 
& let all the cats out. "was he really
that bad?" my grandmother once asked.
she was dead already. this was just a seance
& i was hoping she would turn out
to be a feminist. she is/was not. 
instead, she left diet pills in my lunch box.
killed a bird & hung it from the power line.
in a world without ankles
i am the pogo stick. my lover teaches me
how to measure rice in the cooker
with my hand. palm to the bottom.
water to the knuckle. outside
everyone is on fire at least a little bit.
it's good to ask if someone wants
to be happy. most of us do not want
to be happy. to do so would mean 
letting the trees talk loud as they want.
giving up the television words 
& going out to the actual warzone. laying
against the ground & feeling exactly 
how the soil trembles. tonight i eat
my pinecone meal. i plant a hydrangea bush
inside the rice cooker & close the lid.
open it forty-five minutes later
to find a lamb there, sleeping.