stage slap

the trick to making a slap look real
is the sound. we want flesh 
crashing flesh. the spot lights
always turned me into a ballerina
without feet. i tried to live
off pin cushions & flowers. i was always
fighting my hair. trying to put it up
but then it would go & turn into rodents:
ferrets especially but sometimes
a flock of mice. have you ever seen swarm?
i have & when there's a hoard 
of heartbeats all you can do 
is stand back. i practiced by 
destroying telephone poles
& sometimes men in dad clothes.
tuned the sound to be perfect.
a girl in an alley way. a girl 
on a fire escape. a girl in a blender.
"what is she going on about?"
taking the old teeth out
one by one & replacing them
with match box cars. don't get me wrong
i prefer the real thing. i like
my gender to be red & throbbing
from impact. we must make do.
we have to show them 
what they came to see which is
a binary of slapped vs. not. 
we have to convince them we've
been hit. crumpled like a tissue.
i wipe the nose of gods. they always ask
too many questions. "did you feel it?"
the answer of course being yes.
i always feel it. choreographed or not. 

smoked gouda 

my grandmother boiled milk
to drink before bed.
had hands like tree roots. 
cream in the fridge. her cat who 
at night convened with angels.
i only stayed over once. the hauntings 
smelled like chicken & newspapers.
sitting on the end of her bed
she sung to the dark without any teeth.
the tongue she kept in a jar. 
in the afternoon she took out
a wedge of smoked gouda. 
sunlight through her apartment window.
we ate one small piece at a time
like little mice in a room
too big for us. i know so little about
my elders. she took her eyes out
when we she was done & washed them 
in the sink. the radio as divination.
it talked in the voice of her husband,
a man without any bones at all.
i loved the cheese. had never had something
so rich & tasting of fire wood.
when left alone i snuck into the fridge
& nibbled right off the wedge.
salt & sweet. chewing. me, her 
little animal. a child in the thicket
of a heritage. we listened to opera 
& i pretended to like it for her.
i still wonder what she thought
when she went to take out the cheese later
& found my sneaky bites. did she curse me?
did she laugh? did she cut one straight line
to make the piece even? 

the last time

you were piloting the space ship 
without any eyes. 
my empty greek yogurt container
full of fingers. i put on a pair
to love you with. it was a night
in august. everything was indigo. 
even the street lamps. every restaurant 
we tried to eat at was dead or gutted
& in their place stood dollar stores.
we ended up in a gas station parking lot.
you asked if i ever devoured
a pigeon. i admitted, "yes, once."
even though i had much more times 
than that. i had imagined for months
that our lives would roll 
into one big pink ball of yarn.
that i might wake up every day
& find you on the ceiling, standing
with a knife in your mouth. 
we ended up just getting honey buns.
fingers sticky. washed our hands 
with air out the window. there was
no where to go & nothing to do.
just sirens & rhinos in the streets.
they greased the street lamps
with butter to keep any crowds 
grounded to earth. you tried to show me
how you could fly. wings stretched.
duck feathers. you couldn't 
get off the ground. you said
over & over, "i have done this
so many times." they way our futures 
fail us when someone is watching. 
i kept your camera. the one you left
on my nightstand. the following week
i took a train to a new ice cream city.
i always promised i would write to you.
your address rung church bells 
where it was folded on my desk.
i never did but i do still think of you
when the summer is full of holes.
bleeding beams of light. 

carnival glass

there are not enough bells.
i go down to the mystery face
of the old garden just to pluck eye lashes.
my art gets good 
when my life starts wearing cowboy boots.
that is to say, things are not good.
i resist the urge to throw a parade
in honor of my sadness. instead,
i go out in the raining yard 
& try to talk to the dead frog 
i found on the road. he is already 
doing much better now that he's dead.
he has a carousel. he has glasses
that show him only yellow things.
yellow is generally a safe color
unless of course it has to do with 
school buses. i pop out my eyes 
& wash them in grape juice. it stings
at first but then i can see a vineyard of eyes.
everyone's stares collected
in a hillside blaring "take on me."
i would never want to end up 
in a music video. my mouth moves
to glass lyrics. at the mercantile
we become goblins. i ask if you will
look at my face through a vase.
my face is turned into a ferris wheel.
i can't tell if it's an improvement.
don't be afraid of heights. they are just
where angel larvae are hatched.
my conclusion is that we should move again.
we should put our life into vessels. we should
grow wings (the bird kind
not the insect kind) & fly 
into the mountains made
of boots. not boot straps boots though.
i mean heeled beautiful boots. 

van life

get out of capsule or in it.
this is not a place for squirrel skulls
or even really a gameboy. 
we are picking still lifes 
out of our teeth. i had a mother 
but she was too dedicated to victory.
once, in the middle of the night
we woke to the sound of coyotes.
they were rattling tin cans 
& summoning the devil again.
i mark a dotted line where
i want to cut the countryside.
this is mine. this is also mine.
picking flowers & naming them
after past lovers: aiden, kallie,
noah, jason. no longer a hibiscus morning.
i lay on my back & float 
in a chasing blue. not enough rest stops.
not enough rest. can you become 
a pilot of your own dead chicken?
i don't know anymore. sometimes
you have to follow the nothing
until it becomes a heart. fill that heart
with aquarium pebbles & pretend
that you breathe water. 
i took my home & pressed it
into the center of my palm. 
when we run out of water, we'll follow
the birds back to the river where
they take off their feathers 
& turn back into our girlhoods. 
you braid my hair & then you are
just a ghost. the hitchhiker with 
the spider for a hand. dear god
where are we going? i throw
a fishing line out the window
& catch a whale. 

ground bees

there are not enough places to hide.
i walk around with a trowel
& a gun. the gun is full
of goat eyes. all night i am screaming
into a plastic bag. a hole in the bottom
means that the mosquitos can slip out
& drink as much as they want.
i tell you i need a delicata squash
& you are busy in a digital lavender field.
no one is going to remember 
who is the vampire & who is the vampire catcher.
i keep inventing futures 
where there are no open spaces,
only cracks i can pour my face into.
a pill bug arrives on the porch every morning
to deliver a prophecy. too bad i don't know
what he's saying. we once ate a skull together
while sitting over a mountain river.
you said, "this tastes like honey."
the sky bleeds & i try to stich it shut.
you smile at me sometimes like
i'm a dime. i can be okay 
with being a dime. the little face 
of a false god. if i had a place to go
i would stay there for centuries. i would
watch time turn & then, when it was all over
i would walk out & etch the credits 
into sand. look, here is who made 
the sunroof & here is who first
spoke softly enough to the corn 
for it to turn white & purple. 
the bees are writing the history of the world
in their secret bus stations. 
i wish only to join them. 
 

shower curtain 

i once saw my dad strangle a cloud.
white knuckles. rage.
he was on the roof. he was 
the size of a pill bottle
from where i stood in the yard. 
he didn't know i could see him.
today my mom says,
"you're just like him"
& all i can see is rain. rain 
with dead birds in it & rain
that turns copper on the ground. 
rain mistaken for blood. our bodies
are made up of mostly water.
i spend most days now as a cloud.
my father's hands could be 
very gentle. then, so strong.
i pressed down the strings 
on the neck of his guitar. 
singing, i used to wish i was 
a guitar so my father might
carry me into the church.
i was an outdoor child
in the way there are outdoor cats.
eating pizza crusts. barefoot.
his anger was usually latent.
i learned to be good at sensing it coming.
a thunder syrup & then roar.
trying to catch my breath. 
i remember once trying to fit myself
beneath the bed. i was a little cloud.
i rained billboards & thumb tacs.
tried my best to clean up 
any mess. the clouds outside called 
& said, "come, let's be kin."
so, i did. i climbed out the window
on the second floor. briefly, i flew. 

nature nearby 

i use my gps to find gods.
clovers outside with location
written all over their faces.
dropping a pin in your back
& tracking you into the cave's
indigo heart. sometimes i find 
my blood is moldy & rotten.
when that happens i turn to
an ai bot or an algorithm to find
the waterfall's knees.
grocery stores pop up in rivers.
a carton of milk. a stray star.
it says, "you have arrived"
& i sit on the back of a cougar.
large animals feel mythical 
because we turned them neon.
put them into graveyards
we can only reach with a good can opener.
meat & muscle are not enough.
i need a flytrap. i need 
an execution device. i don't like
pretending as if it's all right here.
no, i can see where the nature begins
& i end. it is a story beneath my tongue.
a forest of matches. laying on a decaying tree 
as if i am not also a decaying tree. 
i showed you peasant back 
growing where i should have wings. 
the gps claims 
we are just a few years away 
from singularity when technology
will become nature. the mushrooms say,
"we are already here." i say,
"how many more miles?"
the gps gives me a blue vein to follow.
i walk to a dead end road,
forest vast & aching in front of me.
out from the trees
walks a bobcat. 

turkey meal 

get me out of this sainthood 
i want to be a worm.
i want to crawl on my belly
& eat tear drops from dead boys.
recently i learned everything in dog food:
there's turkey meal 
& tax documents & secret 
tomb ingredients that weren't meant
to be shared with the animals.
at disney world i tried to die.
i fed myself to an animatronic lion.
i am crying in the bathroom
& begging you to help me.
i don't know what i need help with.
there are turkeys whose whole existence
is to feed dogs. the dogs are busy
playing the lottery & barking
at the ugly moon. the moon 
coughs up a slipper. i had been 
looking for that. don't let
the ingredients fool you,
nothing is vegan. there a hand
in there somewhere. i think about leather 
& the process of prying skin from bone
just to wrap yourself.
merry christmas even though
it's september. i don't want
to call home but i should report
that i am still at the bottom of the ocean.
i tell the turkey ghosts,
"we could watch a movie" 
which is my code for,
"i don't know what else to say." 
mostly, an apologize is a trap door
into pity & a crunch wrap supreme
for someone else. unsatisfactory.
unsavory. switch blade
without a home. don't get me
confused with someone 
who knows where he is at all time. 

veal

i want a childhood to fall off the bone. 
in my toy chest i have a rope 
& a fire. i go out to the field
to warn everyone. their dinner plates
buzzing in their guts. like the calves,
i was made to be slaughtered
if not biblically then through the process
of holy machines. there are not enough
bolts to blank out the brains of 
every single ghost. instead, they walk.
bridle & blood worms. angry dandelion. 
i bark at the sun until he is a witch too.
let's not forget the feast. rose scented skin.
glass dining halls. a napkin tapped 
on a lip. i did not swallow the nails,
i hammered them into the wall 
of my bedroom. used them to climb
onto the ceiling & call out to the mother.
electric fence crown. holy bovine
& split hoof. i am the animal child 
who does not die. i am piecemeal
& butchered. bone crawling back
to a source. what does my yielding taste like?
& you thought i would just hang by my feet. 
i return to the field that never was 
& dance there, everyone's head on fire.