birthday cake flavor

there are children outside 
with their confetti faces
waiting to be born. tasting vanilla
upon waking up. i don't want
to be reminded of backyards ever again.
a balloon with a fist inside.
once i had a party & invited
only fingers. another year
i was a girl & i had a birthday 
with my friend who was also a girl. 
we ate dinosaur cake. we dressed 
in vitamin suits. there were men
talking about government 
in the corners of my eyes. 
a fork is a place to go if you need
to fester with sugar. sweet
in the same way that spiders 
are sweet & fainting when 
you knew you were going to.
sometimes i find icing where
i would not expect it: in my wallet.
in a lopsided drawer. we could go
& tell the children it isn't time yet
or we could let them do 
what they will eventually do anyway.
touching every window & shouting,
"butter!" haven't you ever
shouted "butter!" in desperation?
i thought i was a baby again
& i thought everyone was going
to sing to me. sky blue bruise.
where the crust comes in
to cull. i take a bite & then
you do too. i don't share 
with any of the children. 
they beg & beg until they are
just piles of sprinkles. i want to go back
to when i was only color. 

gutter

get me the axe. get me
the green whistle. in the new house
gutter clogs with leaves in the storm.
waterfall in the bathroom 
& i came on the phone with god
who is saying, "you asked
for a piece of licorice."
do you ever brace yourself 
when you ask a simple question.
sitting at the table. my feet don't touch
the ground. you can decide 
whether or not you remember.
i do not remember. i do not remember anything
just the scent of spearmint 
behind the house where the rusted nails
proliferate. a man came & removed
heaps of gunk & heavy brown leaves.
water flowing. standing in the shower
thinking, i could be standing outside.
i do not miss you like i hoped i would.
instead, i think of you like a hunk
of leaves. again & again you cease the water.
i am bare & cold & it takes me
too long to realize i've turned off
the water. the walls are still damp.
what kind of playhouse is this?
i feel like everyone is watching
& they know exactly what i've gained
& lost which is news to me 
because i am still unsure. i lay in bed
like a bagel. the hole, something to orbit
or else an entry point. the rain stop
& in the morning everything is made
of violin string. a snake
on the sidewalk speaks in
the old language to say,
"the river is full."

cream cheese moon

when i climbed out of my father's mouth
i had a butterknife in my teeth.
once he hit me with a broom
until i became a wild turkey.
i tell my lover, "he is a good father"
by which i mean
"i cannot stop loving him."
in another poem i romanticize him.
i promise the reader my childhood
was smooth as a fresh carousel apple. 
my first job was cleaning up his voice.
hands & knees. my brother often turned
into a feather duster. i would hold him
& say, "there is no more dust."
in the attic i found a gun once.
i pointed it at the window
& pictured the pane bursting. there are memories
that become so core to ourselves 
they are saved in stained glass. 
a fracturing. where i love him
& where i hate him. it becomes cliche
to think too much about where
you are from. the first death of the author
is a departure from origin.
someone asks me, "who inspired your work?"
i want to say, "the man i talked to for weeks
on the porch of his sweet mildew house."
instead i say "frank o'hara" because
it's also true & i add
"ca conrad" because it's even more true. 
my father once threw a marble at my face
& somehow it struck me right 
in the eye. living is like making swiss cheese.
a birth of holes or absences
or portals. it depends on the day 
how i choose to name them.

horse storm

the hooves were like hail.
telling a story to a date again,
"when i was a child
i saw the sky turn
into bottles." a thunderstorm
where in the dark i saw my father
as a snake. my brothers & i
ate pineapple from tin cans.
i learned to burn my wrists
with matches. created
connect-the-dots or constellations. 
is this what the gods were doing?
sitting in a basement 
trying to hurt themselves into being.
do the gods self-harm? do they 
turn to the void to try
to talk things out? do the words
turn strange & stringy in their mouths.
i ghost my therapist. i make up 
the things she might tell me.
sometimes you find yourself 
in a wild & you have to find a horse.
ancestries of toppled cupboards.
pointing to the hole in the wall
where my brother became a man.
then the other hole
where my uncle tried
to connect the two sides of house.
a house is so much like a horse.
what is carried. what is domesticated.
what has only one toe. basement
of bobbleheads & buckets.
that one crucifix where jesus looks
like he's smiling. like this is a kink.
i mean of course it is. restraint.
reward. the clouds have their own 
televisions. their own sisters & spatulas.
sing to me if you want to but don't
make a promise you're
too scared to keep. kill the rose bush
before it kills you. i do not know
how i got here or what i want.
the horses start to fall.
tumbling bones. rain rushing
as blood in their teeth.
nothing to see here unless you want
there to be. i look around
& wonder if i should call someone.
there is only the gods & they are busy being young.
i tell my date, "let's go outside."
he says, "in this?"  

landfill

i talk to the tinfoil deer
& they say they are going environmentally friendly.
no one frolics enough
but especially not 
in the rust. everywhere i go
i see lovers. the telephone polls
& the stop signs on either side
of the road. i landfill mouth sometimes.
i have spent years trying
to remove the river & then
to put it back. i don't know how to say
everything has changed 
to the daguerreotypes standing
like it's christmas in the storm cloud.
i took out my teeth to find the tracking chips.
there was no black cat
but i saw one. a psychosis secret
is to use your iphone camera
& check if your life is your life.
i took a picture. there was a bird faced girl.
can a delusion learn so much
it becomes photographable?
let's not let the mice get what they want.
let's give them cherry pits. let's what
as they decide to evolve into birds
to get away from the muck. 
when my feet are dirty i want
to throw them in the burn pile. 
pill bottle of pill bugs. let's decompose 
like fish hooks. which is to say
take too long to become 
possible dinosaurs. running barefoot
in the razors. let's get the dust.
let's get the water. firework. firestorm.
flecks of gold. 
 

blood bath

i go into the meat grinder
as a cherub. my thighs
like tulip worlds. all i want
is a future where no one
turns into a pinwheel.
there you are just an inch
in front of my & i am holding
on to our life by the scruff.
eating grits right from the tube.
i wash my hands & the sink water
is blood. no one else can see it.
the man in the corner
tells me i am not long
for this world. i bring him
hard candies & ask if he can
grant me one wish. that you 
live like a stained glass window.
god all of your futures 
like pillowcases. i don't need much
you say as you take the largest
bite you can. i want to shake you
& say, "need more." a book i read
cautions me against excess.
i do not want to be cautioned. i want
someone to convince me to do
all the terrible things. i want
someone to blame for the way
my bones fall apart & refuse 
to speak the language they used to.
i fight a cloud. i fight a parking garage.
my hands are stained from
strangling a gushing tree.
let the rose bush throb all she wants.
this is not for her. this is not even
really for me. this is for you. 

self swab

i land a man on the moon
& he knows nothing
about the body.
a leg up on the counter.
this is what i do 
to know where bees have hives.
where there is a game of chess.
i explain to my gynecologist 
"i have a history of assault"
which is what i say
to avoid the word "rape"
because there's no common exchange
where the word "rape" can live.
i think of it like a vulture.
the vulture herself has done
nothing wrong but she knows
what the world comes to.
flesh & guts & grit. cold instruments.
the promise of a result. knowing
one way you aren't dying
or one way you are. the brush
is plastic & strange. i cry & ask
for forgiveness. a small mirror.
you can do it. be a mother.
room after room. the clinic 
is called the "women's center."
sometimes i wonder if gender
is just a repository for different kinds
of pain. when i am done
i put the swab in a solution.
i leave it on the counter.
try to put myself back together.
the doctor says, "we will try this."
days later it works & i am alive
reading test results on my phone.
i am somehow alive & there is
a statue garden inside me
or else a burning rose bush.
one of the men who hurt me once said,
"i can tell you want more."
i feel like the world is always saying that.
my doctor says, "you can come back
next year." i sit in my car
in the parking lot & think of
dead goldfish floating 
to the surface of their bowls.

false tuna fish

when i say "auto pay" i mean
don't tell me how you're going
to take me piecemeal.
we went on a writing retreat
in the mountains & we ended up
not writing much at all. i saw
a deer. i didn't say anything
about how badly i wanted
to make a zoo in the neck of a tree.
i know i am spending too much money
but i can't stop myself. sometimes
money is just a number not unsimilar
to age which is to say it means everything.
when i was a teenager i dated a man
in his twenties. i thought i was
the oldest person in the world.
i was parenting him & myself
& sometimes finding time to count calories.
i am a person of measurements.
if i can quantify this fear it can become
manageable. i do not want anyone to die.
not even people i don't like. 
i want us all to walk around forever
with our pockets full of steel wool.
i find a penny on the ground & 
see that it is vacated of a president.
i'm sick of anything national. let's just
scrap the whole thing & worship lichens.
i am so in love i am willing to 
swim in the ocean. waves. water. 
a shark with a bank account. jellyfish
who are not quite ready to die.
i miss you in the way the moon misses 
just being a figment of the universe's imagination.
no pressure at all. the future is always better
when it is not the future. then it is here
& we are terrified. i picture you
tearing up the carpets in your house.
nails in the floor. we can be vegan you know?
not kind of vegan but really vegan.
we can fish for false tuna in the sunflowers.
i can feed you with the bent fork.

firefly shrine

i have a threshold garden.
we stop in front of the condemned house
to admire its guts. wishing we were
teenagers so we had the will
to crawl inside. the fireflies 
are starting to die & i don't want
to make peace with it. you sit
on my lap & i tell a story that we've
been married for centuries.
the first & oldest lovers. maybe when
you tell a story it becomes true
in one way or another. there was
a candy stand at the farmer's market
that sold bubble gum cigars.
i pretended to smoke them on 
my parent's porch. banana & kiwi flavor.
i ask the fireflies how they would like
to be remembered this year &
they refuse. as a species they reject memory.
instead, they believe the world is
like an onion. layer by layer.
year by year. the old years right there
in the dirt with you. as i fall asleep 
i don't believe in insects anymore.
you asked me what butterfly i would be
& i confessed "a cabbage white."
something unassuming & completely
assuming. kissing the burials of fireflies.
leaving single blossoms. 
tell me you can see my graveyard
or at least my last mini skirt
before i became a sock collector.
i tell the fireflies i will do what i can.
i bring lightbulbs & glow sticks. i bring
a bowl of clementines almost overripe. 
the remaining fireflies are grateful.
they promise to take as long as they can
to die. you are there too & we 
are singing to them. kiss the root.
the bulb. the blood. see the bats 
& they scrape the sky for radio waves.
a broadcast promising nothing
but an iridescent knuckled dusk. 

dinosaur chicken nugget

they say we're evolved from
microphones. i open the freezer
& sitting next to the specimen 
of an extiction is a bag
of dinosaur nuggets. we keep 
cutting down the land line just 
to have it grow back. someone 
is always calling & asking 
if we've found jesus. jesus lives 
in the garbage disposal & eats his fill.
i always say, "i have too much butter cream
to deal with salvation." then i hang up.
i hope they think about it for years.
i haven't eaten an animal since high school
unless you count the spider that
supposedly crawl into your open mouth
as you sleep. this is probably an old wives tale
but i choose to think i'm getting
more protein than i really am.
i am so in love with someone right now
that i would burn down whatever they asked me to.
every day eco terrorism seems
like  a more & more viable option.
we could live off the land i think
as i microwave the nuggets. a ressurection.
i am trying to bring them back to life.
"rise!" i say & the dinosaurs return 
but only as voices. calling like flicking
a lighter & not getting the satisfaction
of the flame. i don't want ambition.
i want to spend money. i want to have
the hollow bones of a bird so 
when i fall i turn into a cartoon shape
of my history. instead, i collect myself
off the kitchen floor. wipe grit from my knees.
turn the dinosaurs (again) into compost.
eat chick peas from the can. 
write a list of ways i can worship 
my lover: fresh cut snap dragons,
a bullseye, and a kiss put in an envelop 
so that it will turn into a moth.