canned pineapple 

we would eat the crushed god.
fist of sweet echo. plastic fork 
& the concrete steps outside the beer store.
bottle caps & bottled birch. 
when i return to my hometown
i make postcards of our femurs.
i cut down trees. i fill my pockets
with walnuts. the graffiti doesn't change
so the prophecies age. turn into scripture.
"don't be a machine" on the shoulders
of the stop sign leading out of town.
all the afternoons we spent trying
to cull a gender from the wreck.
the downed plane in the quarry.
your backpack can opener. we felt like
escapees. camping in our own lives.
none of us really know where we are.
i keep trying to find a statement about childhood
that doesn't still apply to me today.
i was a ghost. i am a ghost.
i was a girl. i am a girl.  i was a boy.
i am a boy. i do not want to share 
my little cool morsel on a hot day
but there you are, my elsewhere body.
juice dripping down your chin. we could 
keep walking. live in the woods. eat nothing
but skunk cabbage & mulberries until
we turn to sound. the desire to escape
never goes away. where i am from 
a gravity pulls us to soil. tells you,
"we could make bread of your bones."