ice cream truck

i bite down on my scoop of the ice caps.
no one is saying there isn't a glacier
that looks like your father.
i had a yard sale to sell my decades.
a man with a trunk full of pineapples 
buys my 20s & runs away with them.
maybe if i was a girl my days 
might include more sighing & windows.
there are people in my life who still pretend
i'm a girl. they pick at my hair 
using chopsticks the wrong way. 
i'm often standing in front 
of an open fridge door eating my "dinner"
& "relaxing." i love how quotation marks
turn a word into a question.
what do you mean you're in love with me?
don't you see i'm on fire? do you want
to be on fire too? i remember standing
& watching the house of bronze burn down.
how i felt like my life was becoming a pebble.
the good thing is i'm easy to pick up.
in our neighborhood now 
there's an ice cream truck who drives himself.
little kid fingers reaching for a bite.
i do not believe in stranger danger anymore.
those who said they loved me the most
were the ones who took from me.
bottle caps & a bloodied nose.
a voice that said, "i didn't hit you, do you
hear me?" the ice cream truck is
a place i live. figure eights & flights.
a trunk full of skulls. would you like a taste
of something sweet? would you like
to spend the night with the stained glass sun.
i am sweating lemonade. i am jumping rope
inside my heart. let's not pretend 
the melting doesn't have consequences.
i feel like a girl standing in my driveway.
i hold an ice cream cone & someone 
is telling me, "you can't eat that yet."
cream down my wrist & elbow. i'm begging. 

birdcage with balloons

give me your gusher submarine 
& i'll raise you a goat on the moon.
i walk outside & there are
torando warnings. the tornados each
have instagram accounts 
& they are on live with their hunger.
i have always been shy about
posting a severed tongue. the truth
is a place we all grow ghost peppers. 
i have no water to spare
only whatever spit i can conjure. 
getting a tattoo from a crow,
he suggests we take shelter & i ask
"what shelter?" the parking garage 
where we kiss is marked as a storm refuge.
i imagine living out of my car again.
"things could be worse" is my religion.
come though. let's pick out 
a birthday cake. let's plant in it
a field of roses. did you know 
roses have their own dating app?
no pictures are all, just favorite lines
from love poems. they are hopeless
just like i am hopeless. do not ask me
how i am doing, as me what i have
burned today. ask me where i plan
to run. my knees pop out again 
& i don't put them back. become 
my own little rag doll. someone please
braid my hair. that is a silly thing
to ask. i have no hair. at least, 
not on my head. it's all on my legs.
taiga forest. wolves run there.
the snow doesn't visit another year
& another. when did we arrive 
at dystopia. this is a time for dinosaurs.
a time for birdcages filled with balloons.
do not waste the sunset. help me steal
a piece to eat. i am told it tastes 
like peaches & cream. 

hornet's nest dream sequence 

on the wrapping paper moon
we sewed our bodies, one to the next.
the thread from the back of our throat.
we spill together down the gullet 
of sleep. black hole eating his brother.
a thought of sweetness & then 
of stiny. the flesh & bone of intruders.
everyone is an intruder if you are
looking closely. fingers sipping nectar
like humming birds from our pockets.
the wolf promised his eyes for
a night of feckless wandering. we devoured each
& our minds burst wild with 
ankles & feet. the mountain craning her neck
to try & see the thumbnail god.
when i was small, i could hold my thoughts
in my hands. blueberries. thimbles.
now they crack. yolk spilling into river.
a veiled ghost. you are my shoulders.
my skeleton map. thread quivering
with delight. the dream is gaining bloom.
yellow like only we can crave. pollen
as scattered pearls. we kiss & then we are
each other. i live inside your eyes.
you inside mine. dream lovers.
the needle & thread. a penny carried
to the heart of a dying star. it is not enough.
the hive has a fissure. i am convinced 
somehow it my fault for wanting 
to dream of a coffee machine.
the others broke away & saw visions
of cornflowers & dandelions. 
i never asked to see god's face
but there it was like a chainsaw. grinning
& glowing above the arched back
of the hills. the hive pleats. i turn to stone. 

spearmint heart

i eat the whole bush in one day,
white tower flowers & all.
feel my skull turn into a breath.
fist in a bowl of snow. we are walking
& you are just a few steps ahead.
it is raining or flurrying or we are
inside a painting where no one 
has any lines. i find roots beneath
the television. a sprout from the telephone. 
i an consumed by an almost. you are
right there & then you are not
& i am in the yard with the spearmint bush's ghost.
all the apologies i can dig from soil.
pilots who look down & see a city on fire.
that is my nest. those are my nestlings
who turned to thumb prints 
on the sidewalk. swallowing nothing
but spearmint. the bush returns
to feed me. says, "trust no one else."
my stomach becomes a fish bowl. beta fish 
& blue pebbles. i harvest everything i can.
leaf after leaf. i was just a girl. my hands were
still baby mice. pink & thoughtless.
i had to eat my hair to survive. it tasted 
like the vines reaching for their sun's kiss. 
you unwrap me & i am just a slice of gum.
sugar dust across my skin. i already know 
i do not consume enough to survive. 
soon, i will be a garden of ballons. 
hail that falls in the shape of eyes.
you will search on the cellar floor
for my mouth & find nothing but polaroids 
of the spearmint bush. wild & tangled lover. 

look both ways

before the seam crosses you 
& you find yourself 
inside a plum. i cut my wrists 
& owls came out. they follow me still
looking down from broken-neck trees.
the road comes like an unraveled spool.
deer ghosts lurking & waiting to jump.
once, a giant came & crushed
this path into the earth. now we have
tractor trailers. now we have 
stoplights that grow like wild berries.
i pluck a red "stop" & my stomach
turns into an airplane. there is no where
to rest anymore. every the library has
a dragon you must come to feed.
do you remembeer when love was easy?
i want another first. something without legs.
the plum sounds like a balloon from the inside.
i might as well throw caution 
into a boiling pot with the lobster.
crustacean poetry is incredibly morbid.
the blue crabs say, "remember you are dust."
let's get married in the church built from skulls.
a beetle crawls out my mouth &
i debate whether or not i should kill it.
the cars come faster than they should.
i ask one who is in a hurry, "do you want me
to die?" of course they do. that's what
this whole bowl of noodles is about.
trying not to die. trying so hard 
not to die. looking both ways again
& again. a pterodactyl in the front lawn.
who is going to go out & tell it to shoo?
putting on the steel toe boots to kick 
at the ankles of the big trucks. a man 
smoking a whole pack one by one.
the road is growing another lane this year.
deers forget which ones of them are spirits 
& which ones are flesh & blood. 

glass doorknobs

my eyes were attic doors
to the moth room. everyone
was deciding to be fragile & 
then there was me with my teeth
in a blender. shaved ice for days.
my tongue started to speak
a language different than my own.
alarm says, "smile like you're not dead."
the watermelon were deciding
to grow from trees, breaking branches
& necks. haven't you ever
swelled more than you could handle?
i need a cane but i refuse to use it.
instead i resolve to float down river
to wherever i need to go.
what do i keep in the attic, you ask?
it's nothing you should worry about.
the stamps are angry like bees.
the family portraits have vacated
& in their place are giant teddy bears 
stuffed with saw dust. the county fair
had no animals this year. we just all gathered
to stare at the pens & the hay.
once, when my mother was furious
she took all the doorknobs. 
smashed them on the floor
or ate them or planted them
in the backyard where they sprouted 
a tree of doors. i would stare at them
as i passed on my way to school,
too afraid to open any one of them.
the house lay open, gasping.
a fish flopping on the shore.
i cut my own gills. curled up
in the bathtub. called myself 
a piece of lure. reached to my face
& turned my eyes. ascended a staircase
into the insect parts of myself. 

spool

you pulled my stray thread.
string spun from down power lines
& creeping kudzu. all the days i spent, 
crouched in television static
trying to pull a fishing wire 
from the mouth of a dead girl.
around & around the spool.
how tightly have you wrapped 
your life? mine has been a bowl 
of fists. clinging to my own neck
like a kite's throat. 
you keep unraveling me & we find 
birds nests & bullet cases.
playbills & bottle caps.
the thread lays in ribboned innards.
all my race tracks & telephone arteries.
you make me come apart in
the ways i always needed. an outlet
with a priest inside. an extension cord 
leading back to the moon. 
i glow. shear the fur off 
a wandering sheep. become a shepard.
let the grass grow as tall
as it wants. there is no neighborhood 
or mailbox, just any silken tether
we can always find
& follow back to one another. 
in our fresh dark
i make my own orpheus & 
we come to the underworld.
let us never leave here. i want to be
undone again & again. 
i want to be your silver cloud.

lifelike 

i am a pretty good replica of a person.
the sculpture garden is full
of deer. i walk with my lower-case face
on asking for someone's login information.
the television knows my address.
it knows my bite mark. you tell me
i am a wonderful paper doll. 
folding the tabs over my shoulders
to put me in your favorite 2-d dress.
a new video game lets you hit & run.
i fool myself sometimes. look in the mirror
& leave fogged breath on the glass.
there is a moose in the bath tub. there are
quails laying their speckled dreams 
inside my chest. the difference between
a bomb & an egg is what's inside.
i found a model universe & swallowed it.
keys under your tongue. a pearl 
that only shows you the reflection
of your mother. my parents were poured
from wax. puddled & sticky in the summer.
don't take my picture. i am having
a vampire day. spare teeth in the glove box.
i can pull it together when i need to.
so lifelike you think i am really a daughter.
smile. a boy on his bicycle asks,
"are you a girl?" i say, "no" & run away
before he sees me for the doe i am.
trotting on toothpicks. held together
with marshmallows & terror. 

tug of war

i pull my arm out of its socket 
& carry it around like a baby.
i want to be taken apart softly.
i watch a butcher work for notes
on technique. we pluck the turkey
for all the boys. 
in the school yard there is a rope.
the teachers are eating their lunches 
& the kids are throwing goldfish 
in the creek. handfuls of light.
a sword lodged in the neck 
of an oak. it is boys against girls
inside my stomach. then i have 
the insect mind which tells me 
i need to grow moth wings & fly 
to the nearest street lamp to break my skull.
the rope is coarse. the rope is made
from eye lashes. i never wanted to be
a child. i just wanted to be a prophet.
standing in a tree & threatening
to grow wings. the teachers set down 
their yogurt to plead, "no no no."
heaving the rope. this way this way.
bracing against the slightly muddy earth.
everything is 2001. the baby is always
just an arm until it's not & it's
a little dream home. plastic hair.
i need help putting my elbow back.
the rope is a copper head & we all slide off
& let go. run screaming except for me
& my curious gender. stand there
with the snake. between girl & boy
is a danger gender. that is where 
i live. the snake promises 
to swallow me whole.
i run away before he can. 
the butcher is tired. his knife 
is covered with ruby blood. 
perfect little turkey breasts 
& perfect little legs. as if the body 
were always meant to be dissected 
in parcels like this. 

penny on the rail road tracks

i buy a hole in a gumdrop
to live inside of. 
gun drop through a crossroads
where the devil is holding
his cell phone in the air to get reception.
i once threw a bowling ball back in time.
the dinosaurs knew nothing
about the non profit industrial complex.
they didn't know one day our bodies 
would become replicas of themselves.
sometimes i go into a room & i see
a hallway of trains. they are hungry 
for abraham lincoln who, as you might know,
was not all that great of a dude. 
at least he believed in ghosts. i am 
making up a history where he had
a gay lover who was a ghost. there is
not enough evidence for me to decide 
whether or not the house is on fire. i smell smoke
but that could just canada burning again.
i measure my maple syrup from 
a tablespoon. i ask the devil how he unwinds 
& he says that he doesn't. says he chews 
pen caps & tries not to think about skeletons.
as a child i would lay pennies 
on the railroad tracks in the hopes 
a train might come & squish them flat.
the coins just flew off. trains on their way
to a gum drop mountain or a firing range.
collecting change from the weed-laden sides 
of the tracks. i thought, "i am a bumble bee"
i thought, "change me into a fundraiser."
sometimes i go into room & no one at all is there.
i feel a moment of relief. hold a brief 
& urgeny seance. i know urgency 
is a kind of plague but i keep feeding it
all of my eye lashes. i do not want 
to talk about money ever again.
i just want to crush pennies. find them
faceless & laughing on the tracks.