how to get a mortgage 

bury your teeth in the front lawn
of an abandoned house.
in a city of vacant rooms,
you are the dog. we are all running from
the debris of the fiber glass moon.
you carry a bag on your back 
full of snow globes. each of them
are a place you died. you have
collected much more than nine lives.
the cats are not jealous of the ways
you keep coming back in search
of a place to chew your nails
like everyone else. to own the land
would mean to kill it.
to say, here is the blood i turned
into a landscape. into a rose bush.
instead, i want
to lay down & let the moss
build a house for me. 
give me a swimming pool full 
of rice. a cupboard of canned beans.
basement full of secret whales.
sometimes i swallow peach pits
in the hopes that one
will grow a house boat. 
little raft between my ribs.
i walk for years until i reach
a beach covered in tea pots.
there a shark washes up
on the shore to tell a prophecy.
"this will be water again," he says.
you blink your eyes & you see it.
the depths. your childhood home
in the bottom of a fishtank.
goldfish as neighbors.
they put a veil on your head
& tell you, "please be descent."