throat garden

i heard about you in the throat garden.
everyone was talking about the time
you cut off your hands & they turned 
into gila monsters. i bought feeder fish
from the pet store for my turtle who would
become part of the garden when
she ran away during a lightning storm.
the whole sky was a bruise & she sung
about the water that kept her & the water
that made her. i hope someday to become
part of the garden too. for better or for worse
i love to talk. i could complain all day.
people will visit my throat when they want
to really bitch about something &
i'll say "yeah, yeah, yeah" to egg them on.
you need someone to cosign your fury sometimes.
in the garden no one is whole which is
a relief after a life of having to pretend.
instead, we talk in fragments. build
a stained glass language where every word 
means what it needs to. everyone said 
we would make great lovers. i found your mouth
& threw pennies in, making wishes. 
you love the taste of metal &/or blood. 
sometimes we take turns being
the throat. you be the tongue & i'll be
a song. the throats can be long & sometimes
surprisingly shallow. i once stuck my foot in
to test the waters. sounds of holy bells
& fingerless moons. i find the shallow water
always warmer. more suited to floating
on my back & nibbling at the clouds.
let's just stay here. i can bring you all 
the pockets you want. we can talk until
there are no more words left, all of them used
& sitting like wrappers at our feet. 
then i can be a throat too. a place to visit.
for a stranger to nestle inside of after
a long day of trying to be legible 
in a toothless place. 

yellow jacket

when i met you, the bees came.
first just a few in the laundry room.
they crawled all over the back window
talking to the sun. i tried to let them out
but more always arrived. 
in the dark we became eels. 
made knots to hang the clouds from.
the house shrank to the size of 
a mouth to crawl inside. the bees talked
all night, especially on the nights when
you didn't stay. those nights all the bees
could say was, "more more more."
we wanted too much from each other.
i cut off fingers. the tip of my tongue.
an ear lobe. gathered them in a little glass bowl.
put on a collar made of street lights.
the bees multiplied. built a queen out
of stars & she laughed until the whole house 
thrummed. i would find their carapaces 
on the floor in commas. their hungers,
fruitless. siblings coming to repeat the same
impossible reaching. one time when 
you stayed, there were so many yellow jackets 
that one flew into our desire. 
the bed like the trunk of a getaway. 
i wanted to so much for us. one night i 
climbed into the hive. i tried to leave
with handfuls of echos. tried to build
a queen in the backseat of my car. she always
left before the sun could yolk run 
down the stairs. when you went home, the bees said,
"we are dying." i swept their bodies from
the tile floor. some angry brethren still 
furious & spinning. sometimes i think 
we were just two of them. yellow jackets 
with mouths of nectar. a hive in the walls
of the old house, calling us to eat. 

sat test 

the test will detonate 
when you are a first-born eel. 
the test will call you "mother"
if you find the question used to determine
whether or not you grew up
in a place with big money. i did not
grow up in a place with big money
& so the question bit my finger &
the proctor put her finger to her lips
& uttered a "shush." 
i cannot believe there are still sitting children
with pencils in their teeth. a screen opens
to reveal a trophy. someone was 
the smartest in the eyes of the hungry state.
someone was worthy in the sense that
their blood tastes like oranges & is not
prone to rebellion. i remember 
the bathroom after the exam. all the children
from other schools. their soft fingers
& the pink soap they used to scrub
their hands. my score was mediocre
which at the time devastated me but now 
i feel proud. do not let them
swallow your thoughts. do not let them
measure you. to be measured is to be
destroyed. i am as tall as the great oak tree
that once stood above my elementary school
but is now just a stump where
older kids go to sit & look up at the sun. 
i am as small as the toads whose throats
fill with trumps in the late season when
they are debating when they should
turn back into stones for the winter.
a timer went off. a door opened. 
in the parking lot i wiped my palms 
on my thighs. i do not remember who 
drove me or why. the day, a can of black beans.
lid pried open. mouths gathering. 
some people will tell you "future" & mean
"capture" & some will say it like a root.
hold on to the root. dig them up
only when the season is right. feast.
the legs in the dark. the timer going off
in a cloud. decide what parts you are willing
to feed the question machine & which 
are only tell to the crows & the dead deer
& the man without a face who meets you
beneath the oak tree that is no longer there. 

salmon mouth

sometimes i open my mouth
& the salmon are home. they have swam
up my blood to the surface. their scales
like hand mirrors in the dark. 
i am fishing. i am fishing out my window
like i used to do as a child when 
the year put on her blanket & curled up
at the foot of the bear. i would snag
all kinds of dreams. a hook through 
my grandfather's lip. his braided beard
like a trestle into a sweat sweet jungle. 
a hook through my grandmother's ear
as it rang like a bell struck in an empty church.
i am hungry in a way the stars can 
no longer fix. i am hungry for sleep & for 
legless birds. no more landings 
let us go until the world is water. until there
are no more dams to block our teeth.
bite down on the holy ground. mouth of sand.
mouth of water. mouth of salmon. 
the roots clapping their hands beneath
soil. singing their bells. the hook 
finally catching my father when his hair
was still long. when the sound of cicadas 
opened us like canned meat. his jeep
in the parking lot beneath the willow tree.
the salmon finding us there. filling the floor
of the car. a breeze that turned us both
into ghosts. i reel in a bare hook. put it through
my own tongue & hand the rod to the sun. 
make me a cloud. i want to rain. 

ripe window

windows start falling from the big fist tree.
i can't work quick enough to gather them all. 
i have been considering giving my phone
to a passing fox & escaping from the world. 
what would i do to keep my little brain 
from buzzing? i guess i could start 
receiving prophecies again. my windows have windows.
my windows taste bitter like dandelion root
& nasal spray. i want a really ripe window.
i want one soft to the touch like the flesh
of an eager persimmon. a portal to push through.
once i spent the night in a house with windows
for walls. i thought the whole world
had pulled up a chair to watch me. i laid
on the floor & looked up at the ceiling. 
waited for my skin too to turn into a place
people gather to see another side. if i had
the ripe window i would pull up a chair.
drink some spiced tea without sugar. offer
the window a sip. maybe outside there would be
deer protesting or a magpie with a message
about where to be saved. the best part of 
my lush window would be the guests.
crows & salmon & even the wondering 
ceiling creatures. all of them here in the 
living room with a plan about how we are all
going to remember our bodies as part
of the soil. in one apartment i had a window
that opened to the sky. i always dreamed of
a ladder to reach it. the window did not open.
just a skylight. i wanted to touch the glass though
in the middle of the day. feel if it was warm. 
feel the sugar. learn if it was sweet. 

the deer walk

when i am alone the deer always walk
on two legs. you drive home & take
three wrong turns. we snake through
weird fresh neighborhoods that look
like movie sets. most of the homes are unsold.
there used to be trees here & weeds
& the occasional wildflower with a heart
of a hummingbird. i don't usually feel 
like anyone can hear me when i talk
except for the deer. i admit that sometimes
i cry alone before bed. it is pathetic.
mostly in the bathroom. on a good night
a deer will walk up to the tiny window
& press her nose to the glass. i will show her
my legs & ask her if she could give me hooves.
i want to run with them through 
all the tongues of men. eat their gardens.
ring their doorbells. enter a new development 
& stand on the ceiling. the guests in the morning
baffled by the wayward hoof prints. 
the worst part is i cannot blame you.
i know i am the kind of lover who runs away.
who avoids making promises. we hang 
a left. the roads thin & you go slow. we are 
in deer country. i am embarrassed & i hope
that none of them are standing, ready to greet me.
is it wrong to want to keep a secret? myself & the deer
with our feet planted in the autumn earth. 
their eyes shine like dimes in the dark. tossed coins
turning into stars. the deer always keep
our secret. i walk out barefoot to bring them
grapes from the fridge. 

trust fall

i end up on the other side of 
the moon with my feet in the air.
we buy only left shoes 
for a whole year & try to get along.
i have snippets of a dream in which
i am unprepared. i cross my arms
across my chest & ask you to catch me.
you do not (cliche) or you do (cliche).
we eat ice cream until the sun
is bored & goes to get his hair done. 
when you get right down to it
there is not much to do. once i fell 
& my guardian angel caught me. 
i saw his horror face & screamed. 
"there is too much screaming" someone says
who has had the pleasure of not
having their lungs scream at them
or their joints scream at them or the sky
sometimes shake her fist & scream at them.
i prefer movies with no trust & no story.
let the vibe knit us a great trust.
something warm as a golden bowl
of melted butter. when i was small
& could not sleep i would beg for
cinnamon sandwiches. wheat bread 
with bitter cinnamon. i think i craved
a really solid fall. i learned 
how to get up on the roof of the house
from my dad. there he stood one morning
& i asked him, "have you been here
all night?" he asked,
"can i trust you?" that is how i learned
to catch someone three times my size.
he is shrinking now so it'll be easier
if i end up there again. sometimes i want
to ask my brother if he ever caught 
our father but i think it might end up
sounding like i'm bragging. it is always
better to do the catching than the falling.
i have mastered doing both
at once. we played "trust falls"
in elementary school when the sun
was a softer color. a girl with cucumber melon
body spray caught me. i forget if it 
was in gym class or just the playground.
i remember feeling surprise at the lack
of catastrophe. no one dropped anyone.
not even the boys. not even the bells.
not even the sky. 

false sense of security

moments before alligator,
we all drove to the mouth of the waterfall
where no legs were supposed to exist anymore.
i used to sleep only four or so hours 
a night back then. i think, "no wonder 
i was crazy & on fire." i loved you though
like only a fire can love. tongue around
the heel. we walked in greenwich village
& smelled cigarettes & lost music. 
there were billboards with our bones on them.
i am envious of everything my fledgling teeth
had not bitten down on. the windows 
that had not turned into terrariums around me.
never go toe to toe with the dark,
it always has something else to spit
into the sky. a boy without a face. a train
that rides, passengerless towards the end 
of the island. & to think i used to float 
on my back in the public pool & not see
a chandelier above me. just the clouds, each 
a zoo room. how soon before the jaw
do the lungs know they are flags?
sometimes still we talk on the phone 
while i'm driving. i think of how small
the beds we slept in were. no choice
but to hold on to each other. 
i have always thought innocence is
overrated but then again it has been a long time
since i had a carpet like that. sometimes
on the right night, i walk for days until
i reach a pair of knees. they knock together.
all the doors in the world have kitchen knives
behind them. i chase myself back
into the warmth like i do for the chickens
at dusk. a fox calls me four times.
i don't pick up. he leaves a voicemail 
claiming to be my mother. my real mother
leaves a head of lettuce on the porch.
there is a police car on the moon & a police car
up the street & a police car grazing in the field. 
i keep my face in the top drawer next to the keys. 

holy infomercial morning 

in middle school i liked to be
the first one up. the house cracked
her knuckles. i washed my face
with loud bar soap & sat alone
to watch the infomercial channel.
there were women with perfect hands 
& rotating spatulas & machines meant
to keep your meatloaf from sticking.
a vacuum seal god. a magic towel. i watched
until the television came alive with cartoons.
i came to crave the infomercials more
than the stories to follow. i loved
the repetition, how sometimes the same
three hour commercial would play
for weeks. i memorized their mantras 
like strange prayers for an easy life.
the hosts were either perfect women
or shouting men with thick beards 
& shiny teeth. their genders, polished &
tidy. i waited with anticipation
for my favorites: the round cake pan
& zoo books full of bright animals. 
we never ended up getting any 
of the items from the commercials. 
that made the shows more meaningful
to me. a glimpse over & over of that which
will never come. the way the hosts
hold the products like treasure. after the infomercials
arthur would come on & my dad would come home
from the night before. no one but me
knew anything about my affinity for 
long-form advertisements. my secret realm 
of strange desire. the host begging, "call now."
i wished i had a credit card so i could pick up
the phone & answer their pleas. instead, 
sun rise knocked on the windows. the day crawled
out of its numbers. my father drove
the winding roads from the factory back to 
our blue back door. 

water foundation

i cut a hole in the gourd & get 
a whole lot more thirsty. we should be
fighting grammar as often as possible.
sometimes i punch my pronouns
until they give me what i want. 
(they never give me what i want).
if anything i am pro not-making-any-sense.
my memory is going which is either
a good sign or a bad sign depending
on how you look at it. sometimes i forgot
as an act of self protection & other times
my mind has a shovel & together we dig until
there is no floor left. online i watch videos
of a man remodeling an old victorian house.
he pulls up the floor & the next floor
& the next. i own a house now which is
confusing. i never thought i would survive
this long so each day feels kind of like
a mirage. there is an angel that lives 
in the well beneath the house & sometimes
i hear her singing in the pipes. i don't know
if there is a better way to say this but 
i could drink water until i make myself
into a pond. manmade is an oxymoron.
the land makes us & we run as far away as possible.
i do not want another scab of concrete where
there should be milkweed. i want a fountain
where we can all take off our skin & be tangled.
in a city where i don't belong i trace the telephone wires
like veins on the back of a hand. 
my grandmother was never happy 
with her life. i could see it in between her teeth. 
there are enough pennies in the fountain 
to feed the whole town. we all eat consonants 
like soft pretzels until we are sick & doughy. 
nothing left to say but the open mouth drain
of the "o." not a surprise but a foothold.
not a "catch" but a "caught" & a "hold."