a history of loneliness

at our old house with wasps in the walls 
& thunder storms in its hair 
i would go to the cool concrete basement 
with a handful of french fries to feed the mice. 
our little secret. salt grains on my fingers. 
mice came child-like. soft-footed. fearful.
blackberry jewel eyes. i called them friends. 
they came to trust me. sitting near my bare feet 
as i brought a new morsel each day. sunflower seeds &
pineapple & blueberries. tiny pink tongues. 
at first, they just darted away, food in mouth. 
but they learned to linger with me there.

dollar store glasses

it was always fishtank season. i talked to our pennies 
until they they grew papery wings. fly away.
as a kid i saw the world like a monet painting.
bud & blurr & blossom. running through
a field of scissors & emerging with my skin
cut into ribbons. i felt every cough brambles made.
stroked moss on backs of trees. all fours. 
closed my eyes & tried to meditate but instead
gossiped with butterflies. after the woods,
my brother & i would go to dollar tree to try to see clearly.
put reading glasses on & squinted at plastic statues
of parrots & pirates. we never purchased a pair. 

stone's throw

i learned to measure distances between us
with fury. how a fist becomes 
a landmark. give me all the quartz
& i'll find the mirror where i am 
a butterfly-faced boy. my father told me
to go out into the forest & find a rock
worthy of his mouth. i searched for years.
found sea shells & squirrel skulls.
all the while he picked his teeth 
with wintergreen wood. i would day dream
of our reunion. his embrace like greeting 
a mountain. shoulders & shoulders & avalanche.

broth

i took bones of the dirt 
& water-plunged them in the rusted bottom pot.
hunger is a mouth discovered & burried. 
inside, my own bones dwindled. novembering forest. 
i learned to live on glances of fruit. red apple. tongue
of my eyes. steam from boil. carrot legs
& celery jaws & onion knuckles. we made broth
on sundays when fate had less fingers. i thought
of boiling myself. how sweet & melancholy.
wooden spoon dreaming itself back into a tree. 
this is a fantasy of return. to air. to water.  
drinking a spoonful. warmth ascending until i am roots again.

fuzzy handcuffs

i want to give you all my wrists
in a basket like a bushel of plums.
here is how a body is led to the edge of control.
you swallow the key & say, "now you're mine."
we can gift ourselves. should we gift ourselves? 
i have become an expert at feeding organs to neighbors.
jars of honey, syruped light, sit on the windowsill.
coming apart in symbols. my apples. my spearmint. 
i open mouth. there is a welcome mat there
make your home between my breathes. 
i will give you all the "yes" i have. yes, hold me here.
yes, call me capture. yes, make a relic of me. 

wrong order

we sit in the parking lot of the drive through
& watch cars gallop highway like runaway horses.
they gave you the wrong order & we decide
we're not going back in. instead, we inspect 
the curly fries & triple-stacked burger.
imagine workers' quick hands. disposing another pair
of black rubber gloves. then, the person who ordered this.
how they are speeding away. eyes in the rearer view mirror. 
they think, "i cannot wait till i get home, i need a bite now." 
rifling through a greasy bag just to find our mouths.
strangers. we are so close to eating with one another. 
stoplights on macarthur road chew us on our way home. 

the last bird

i remember when every day flocked
to my porch. walking to catch the train 
i's see schools of pigeons speaking stanzas
to one another. life had headlight then.
when the reports came in about the bird,
some wanted to eat the last bird. others wanted 
to dissect him. him, a small pigeon with iridescent blue feathers 
& a thimble for a heart. he was still alive just standing
on a street corner & reciting poetry.
crowds gathered. feathers fell like snow. 
all businesses stopped & we listened. hanging on each word.
on the morning he disappeared, we wept.   

hardware / software

i put on a stone suite & walk
to the supermarket to buy the ripest bananas.
most night, softshell crabs come knocking on windows.
they say, "have you downloaded the sun today?"
i put a USB drive in my mouth. 
it's full of dirty pictures & tastes like 
hand sanitizer. i want to believe i can 
shapeshift. survive & survive. a deep sea animal
made for the pressures of the endless. 
sadly, i am not. i exoskeleton all night
eating white peaches & calling like a whale. 
i break all my bones. load a video of a bonfire. 

hammock

the one tree says to the other "let's be brothers."
in the canoe, sky becomes a bowl of broth.
bones & bones & bones. a dead heron lays ampersand in water. 
you make coffee & the summer glints, a beetle. 
i think "we could camp out beneath the belly 
of the whale." just me & you & our hungers.
i draw tarot cards for squirrels. the eight of cups. 
walking away. all my backpacks of chalices.
we leave our faces hung on branches & go skinniest dipping.
nothing but teeth & ivy. the hammock asks us if
we plan to be stones. i say, "i do." you say, "tomorrow"
in a voice that means, "i am putting this off." 

saltwater fish

when i learned to breathe i asked
the stones for their permission.
a life is a body of water. i toss my lungs
back like eels. feet in the ocean.
i have been planning to run away for as long
as i can remember. i am a salt water fish. 
my bones thin until all i need to open me is a man 
sitting at the kitchen counter: his mallet & knife. 
he's been waiting to see his reflection in my scales.
fists of water. putting a shell to his face
he finds it swallowed. smoothed elbows
& ancient tongues of the old water.