lost & lost

i am proposing a cabinet beyond
the lost & found where we can put
our teeth when they no longer
fit in our skulls. where there is no 
looking backward & instead we make 
new futures where no one 
has to be on fire. i am sibling to the 
orphaned mitten & the charging cable
once plugged into a breakup machine. 
mother to the acorns who could not 
figure out how to sprout & the eggs
who went rotten in the coop. 
we can call it the lost & lost. like a zoo
that you can only enter if you too have
been left behind. maybe that is
a museum. i do not know if you can
be lost & alive. i do not know if
you can be in a museum & alive.
i could be a keeper of this place.
collect our kin. maybe then we could
get to work becoming as lost as we can
possibly be. for me, lostness has been
a way of life. it is where i go to feel
massive & free. i do not want 
to meet the version of myself who used to
be able to give the billboards what
they wanted. who used to find myself
in taffy shop windows. last night when
you yelled at me, afterward i went
to the lost & lost. it was so quiet & soft.
i thought, "i wish i would have brought
a trowel with me." i wanted to get deeper.
i never mean to leave. i am hoping
that one day i am determined enough
to stay lost. that my body becomes
a broom, leaning in the corner & 
i go so far away that all i hear is snow. 

chalk board

in pairs
we clapped the erasers behind
the school. now the school
is a hamburger. they cut down
my beloved tree years ago. 
it was the first tree i ever climbed.
i wonder sometimes where
the wood ended up & if they sold it
to become chicken nuggets.
two of my teachers have died.
i looked up their obituaries 
& they were written in chalk
on the ceiling of a parking garage
in the nearby city. it is astounding
where our stories end up. 
you don't really see chalkboards
anymore. instead, everything
has been "upgraded." i had a dream
last night that it was my first day
of middle school again. only, i was
as big & hairy as i am now. i didn't
really feel more or less out of place though.
back then, i always felt like my body 
was betraying me somehow. 
the hallways glowed. there were
street food salespeople selling
all kinds of hot flesh. i was hungry
but the hallways were crowded 
with children & i didn't have
enough hands. every once in awhile
my 3rd grade teacher let us 
draw on the chalkboard. it was like
having a megaphone. i felt my sliver
of chalk shrinking beneath 
the weight of all i had to paint.
dinosaurs & poetry & my name 
over & over. i wake up sometimes
inside a chalkboard & it is glorious. 
i think they are from all the old rooms
that used to teach me about 
just how small i was. a year ago,
my fifth-grade teacher wrote to me.
she told me she was dying of cancer.
"was i kind to you?" she asked.
she was not but i lied to her. 
i hope when i am dying that people
don't lie to me. i want the truth
& i want a piece of bark from
that old tree. take me out back to clap
erasers. clap with me. let us beat 
our wings like useless little birds.
tell me i have done a marvelous job. 

carousel horse 

i find them in the yard. carousel horses 
dislodged from orbit. i too have found myself
without a sun. i meet the horses though
wherever i end up. i have seen them
in alleyways & at diners. in the city i went to
worship the carousel in bryant park each morning
before eating windows for hours.
i brought them pennies & hard candies. 
i would take a ride only when no children
were around. i'm not sure if that's more
or less creepy. i needed to be alone though
so i could whisper to the horses, "you can
leave whenever you want." they never replied.
i wanted to see them running down
the avenue of the americas. i wanted to see them
breaking windows. a friend yesterday
told me about how once she packed up & left 
for los angeles after feeling a calling. 
i don't know what is wrong with me
but i have never felt a calling. all i feel is
the hunger for a thousand escapes. maybe this
is what the carousel horses run on, a drive
towards the other side of the same world.
when i find free horses, i always bring them bells.
i know they have traveled far & they have
so much farther to go. i cannot decide if i am
the horse who turns round & round
or the marooned horse, nibbling on fallen leaves
in the backyard while the rooster calls down the moon.
the horses begin talking to each other.
i wave my hands. i tell them, "no carousel here."
i feel as gross as a landlord but i cannot watch
this happen again. the wayward horses always decide
that all they need is a new carousel. another
axis. somewhere to twist around. i point
at the murder field. it's littered with blasted corn. 
i tell the horses, "get out while you can."
they scatter. i wish i would have kept one.
i could have found him more bells. i could have
been a sun maybe if i lit my hair on fire,
closed my eyes & leapt. would we have kept 
each other from turning or is it impossible
to resist the need to follow another's back?
i know i will see them again. if i still have any resolve,
i'll do the same. watch them run off towards
a penny song that the stars are playing. 

dragon

i used to pluck out my hair
to feed the dragons who came 
breathing fire on the ghost trees.
i grew up where the creek meets
a quilt's edge. i saw dragons everywhere
as a kid. they were on the roof. 
they were eating my parents. they were
sitting in the garage at night.
my father had me change the light bulbs
on the porch because i was the only one
with hands small enough to fit
inside the old glass fixtures. as i worked
the dragons watched & their shadows
stretched long & clear when the lamp lit again. 
once, a dragon chased me to the weis market.
it was night & he did not follow me home. 
a dragon is sometimes a belief & sometimes
a desire. both are forms of reaching.
i am more of a desire person. i have never
gotten to touch a dragon despite 
all of our interactions. i imagine they 
would feel like the surface of a just-lit 
light bulb in a dark mouth. 
the texture of a garter snake. i want someone
else to have seen them. it could not have 
just been me. i am convinced 
that maybe my brother did once.
it was snowing & the sky was bare.
we both stopped. no porch light,
just the glow of white snow lighting 
our faces. maybe he saw the creature
staring down at us. maybe he was looking
at something else. i could not make out
the beast's full body. eyes. claws. 
wing tips like mountains. 

check engine 

i drive a half-ghost to all the little fires.
we are waiting for a two-truck & the moon
has a flashlight in her hand. 
at this point in my life i am more surprised
when the check engine light
goes off. that hasn't happened for months.
something is definitely wrong
& at stoplights my car will often turn
into a pile of worms. the birds come to feast.
on a particularly bad day last week
i had to beg a flock of crows to carry me
to work. they laughed & obliged.
on the phone my brother & talk about buses.
he's never taken a bus & i think,
"must be nice." instead, he sleeps in the attic
of my parent's house in a town that 
seems to get smaller each year. once in college
i fell asleep on the bus & ended up 
at the outlet stores. i thought i might as well
get out & walk around. i saw a store of
check engine lights & i didn't even have a car.
it follows you. is hereditary in a country 
of bigger & bigger cars. the glow.
the harbinger. it says this life will be expensive
& you should figure out alternate routes.
in high school i used to be obsessed
with hitchhiking. i did it only once.
i got into a strange woman's car (i chose a woman
because i had a sliver of self preservation).
on her dashboard the check engine light
was one & i felt safer. i ended up in the city 
on a corner that smelled like prunes & gasoline.
i don't remember how i got home but
until then i thought i could get anywhere.
in the rain, my check engine light
get dimmer. i have, in my last car, 
pushed on the dashboard as if i could
snuff out the future. of course it never worked
but for a moment it made me feel
like maybe it was possible to will away
an emergency. i am always the one
to turn off all the lamps in the house
on the way to bed. once i saw
a check engine light looking back at me
from the shadows of the house.
i turned away from it. told no one.
i is maybe still there, burning. 

cornfield islands

far out in the corn field behind our house
is a patch of old trees & tall grass. 
crooked limbs. sometimes they look
like a chorus. other times, a butcher room. 
from a distance they form an island.
i've never seen anyone visit but once
i witnessed one of the old farm dogs, 
running across the freshly tilled field
to reach the island. i wonder what he finds there.
if the foxes gather beneath the trees
to worship. if there are stories etched 
in the soil. i tell my partner sometimes
about my desire to reach the corn field island.
he always begs me not to. i think i would
have to go by moonlight. a soft blueish glow
cast across the wintering crops. my shadow,
tripled by distant porch lights & ghosts.
my fear is that once i reached that land
that i would never want to leave. 
that slowly the corn island would drift farther
& farther away from our house. once day
there would be nothing but hills & corn
from as far as i could see. would you be able
to find me? would i maybe once day
meet the farm dog, a bell in his mouth
like an escaped acolyte. i see other corn field islands
when we drive through pennsylvania's shoulders. 
i wonder if they tempt other farmers
& their neighbors. if maybe they act liked
a string of beads leading to the mouth
of something eternal. i pulled over 
on the side of the road once just to stare
at one that looked particularly radiant 
& lush. the engine clinked behind me. 
i don't know how i managed to leave. 

harmonica 

cool metal to lips. my father's
hands ate the little museum.
neither of us knew how to play
but we took turns singing into
the glass hallways. lesson in sound:
if you have breath, then you have music. 
i need more harmonicas lately.
i confess to a friend, "i find myself
holding my breath." the underwater
life. i buy a box cutter & watch a tutorial
on how to give yourself gills. results
are not guaranteed. visit my parents
& scour for the old harmonica.
i look among the untuned guitars
& the penny whistles & the harmonica
isn't there. i imagine a ghost 
holding our tiny sanctuary
& practicing her old voice. a soft tune
in the night wind. i want to be a bright
voice in a thumb quite. often i will play 
the church & steeple game only there are
no people inside. which is to say 
i have no fingers. only a mouth 
& a latent harmonica. online, i see beloveds 
taking photographs of themselves 
at the feet of the empire. when i find one
i am going to spend a whole day with 
that harmonica in my mouth. 
running in a flourish of notes. screaming
on the front lawn of that landlord
in the city who owns everything 
& it is still not enough. harmonica 
with the word harmony buried inside.
i reach my hands in. everything is 
golden. my father is in the garage
singing in the first time in years.
he is small. fits inside one of the window
of our little holy instrument. 
i am breathing so i guess i am singing. 

invisible fence 

i talk to the border & ask what
it hungers for. it says, "a dog."
our neighbors used to have an invisible fence
& so did we only we didn't call it that.
we called it, "home." once a surveyor came 
& brought us collars. he said, "i'm sorry." 
humans are a species of cartographers
but so are deer & so are birds. 
in america though we are sold fences
which is the opposite of mapping. a refusal. 
today a survey i took in the hopes
of winning a gift card asked, "what are barriers
people face to reaching the american dream?"
i said, "there cannot be barriers 
to something that does not exist."
then i thought of fences. the fence my father build
from old billboards he found at the dump.
his callous hands. what was he making.
the fence says, "i want a dog" is ravenous. 
needs bodies to fuel it. asks for
here & there bodies & between bodies 
to chase after. i ask the border, "when do you think
you will rest?" it does not answer because
rest would mean its undoing. 
one afternoon the neighbor's dog 
escaped the invisible fence. he ran
all over town until someone caught him 
& brought him home. before his capture,
he knocked on doors. he said, 
"there is no fence. there is no fence!"
he pleaded with the window beings.
hoped they would follow him. they did not.
soon, the neighbors built a fence too.
plastic. white. in the summer they clean it.
their old dog is dead now. they grow 
tomatoes though & they sometimes 
talk to me through the fence when
i visit my parents. they asked me,
"do you see the dogs?" i tell them,
"no" even though i do. 

tornado watch

we talk about tornadoes at the strip mall.
it is summer & you are afraid of being eaten
by cars. i try to make you promises i cannot keep. 
you reject them & describe in detail 
the way the air feels moments before 
a tornado is born. the tightness of the grey.
birds inside the clouds swallowing one another. 
once when you were young
the wind came & pulled out all your hair.
you hide from the sky. duct tape the windows shut. 
terror has always been a family member to me,
maybe that is why i thought we were in love. 
my father liked to drive into the eyes of storms.
he brought me back bottle caps &
sometimes the leg of a doll. the year before
my grandfather died, the tornado came 
to lyons. followed railroad tracks & threw houses
into the sky. he thought death was coming for him.
today the tornado does not come
just rain & ugly clouds & a man who is driving
somehow without a face. i am realizing there are
parts of you i am afraid of. the knives
you talk to. the framed picture of a tornado 
on your dresser. for the first time, i do not
spend the night. i drive home & i keep thinking
i see tornadoes behind me. i call you twice
& you do not pick up. i am convinced we are
all going to be thrown houses. funny how fear
is a place of meeting or departure. the tornadoes
never catch me & neither do you. at home
at the apartment without doors, i sit
& watch the rain jump rope in the street. 

self-portrait as a drain

the drain in my parents' house is
always clogged. i haven't showered there
in years but the water tasted
like hair & fingernails. the fists in my throat
& the lake that i form. a waterfall from
the crown of a house. once our basement
flooded & i went down there, opened my mouth
& swallowed all the water & the bolts &
the terrors of floating away. my favorite drain
was in a hotel in tennessee. the water 
rushed away as if nothing had happened.
as if i was not trying to escape my life
through portals cut with box knives. 
i only showered at my ex's house once.
the drain was slow. good enough. i saw 
considered taking a bath. another ex 
lived with his parents still & they had
a claw foot tub. i felt useless. tried to use
my mouth like a doorbell. we drank hot tea
& they had something they called,
"second dinner." when i slept in the guest room
at my friend's house, their drain shined
as if someone was paid to clean it. my teeth
are dull & yellowish but i have long
relinquished all fixations on looks. instead,
i celebrate the drain as a site of angels & prophets.
the goodbye place. i invite everyone i know
to my drain & we all drop in a fragment
of someone we need to forget. i clip the tip
off my tongue as if it were a cockatoo wing. 
once i poured a whole carton of milk.
i did not know why. if i could change one thing
about myself it would probably be that i am
not at all a fountain or a well. how does it feel
to be necessary? i want to go back in time to when
the first house was built. cover the walls
with drains. there i am standing in a flock. 
get away, get away, get away.