skin care routine

sometimes hives break out 
along the back of my neck
like a garden path
to disappearance. i want into 
a room of potted mirrors.
watering the self & saying,
"you are worthy of softness."
lotion made from retired clouds.
a lightning bolt who 
wears high heels & speaks only
in similes. "your body 
is like a daguerreotype."
sitting still, i wait to 
return to my limbs. a gasoline serum 
in a dropper. just a little fire
to each cheek. evening out
the skin tone. i lay down
& wait to be raked into a pile
with the other leaves. 
something is always falling.
boys are always touching
their skin. he ties my hands
behind my back & i walk around
all day like a parcel.
where i am going there is
only knuckles. 
oil from weeping willows
rubbed into my scalp.
a bowl of dove's eggs mashed.
this is a mask of mud & worry.
lifting the grottos from 
my face. i want to keep 
every cave i have. i will need them.
the eyeless fish know 
what it means to wear a body.
i float on my back in a tub
of blood. i don't know whose blood
but isn't that how we live right now?
whose blood am i in?
then rinsing. patt dry.
almost done. now just for
a walk alone in a house 
of dust. finger prints on every planet.
wrapping myself in parchment paper.
i am not sure how or if 
i can feel renewed again. 

carnival graveyard 

i go by myself 
into the blinking archways of bone. 
eat cotton candy from a skull.
the dead are not dead
just entertaining the living.
i woke up with tickets
in my mouth. taste of sugar
on my my my tongue.
music poured from every knee cap.
am i living? i put on
my funeral dress.
at the carnival off the highway 
everything tastes like metal.
i remember you asking
for a parasol & me saying,
"but it is raining" then, you saying,
"no--it's not." the earth coming
in onion orbits. the sun in your eyes.
i find rusted bolts in my pocket.
there are too many boyfriends to count
& they all want to win me
a giant stuffed bear. the bear
is stuffed with wads of hair.
the boyfriends are older than me.
they tell me i am always
wanting too much. my body is 
a place where balloon darts land.
the ferris wheel in the quarry.
a plane crashes & the scrap
is used for a rollercoaster.
holding on for dear
life. what i have done to hold on
for dear life. pulling hair out
one strand at a time.
the swing ride. kitchen implements 
i've used for digging.
beater. bowl. wooden spoon.
paper plates to sleep on.
the workers put their skeletons away
in clarinet cases. one more thing.
a machine for screaming.
i go inside. someone asks,
"who died?" i remember 
the funeral clothes & i take them off.
i answer, "i am just living prepared."
i want someone to teach me
how to celebrate. don't be brief.
don't come to town like the carnival does.
night after night, then 
frantically reburying itself.
tombstones where it was. 
come to me enduring. a set of kitchen knives.
a disco ball. hold me down 
while i try to run into traffic.
the cars running naked 
on the highway. fill my mouth 
with tickets that do not correspond 
to anything at all. 

scavenger hunt

find a ship without legs
& then ride it to the hole in your sock.
we were talking about 
driving eight hours to find the body.
your dorm room full of socks.
i refused to eat for days
in the hopes i would transform 
into a butterfly. i would like
a break from daylight. find a night
that lasts as long as you need it to.
drilling holes in both hands 
to feign stigmata. telling moths
they can fly through the openings.
find an envelop you never sent.
the post office covered in gold.
limited edition travels. the airplane 
we took to visit desire. eating ice cream
in front of dinosaurs. my uncle 
ran around with his hands on fire
& no one helped him put them out.
when i say i am searching i mean
i bought a shovel. i go outside
each darkness into the city streets
as if i'm going to find a whale graveyard.
squirrel skull. owl pellet
with a vole heart still beating inside.
what terrifies me most is
i'm not sure i'll recognize it
when i come upon what i'm looking for.
maybe a comet. find yourself
a celestial body. one to wear
when this one is done. find sleep.
find silverware. find a lover,
one who doesn't close their eyes.
who walks around like a search light.
i had that & we totaled the car 
& the ship didn't have any legs
so we had to paddle on dry land.
find an ocean. toss your skull
into the water. listen to the crabs
as they play fiddles for mermaids.
the letter arrives without a stamp.
a car pulls away. find a citrus fruit
to serve as the sun. hang it 
from the window. use crayons to 
outline his body against
the bedroom wall. find a way
to save each touch. his hair 
in an old jam jar. to keep is 
to never have to hunt for again.
i have so so so many basements full. 

get rich quick

"what can we do to be 
rich?" my mom asks
in our living room.
the ceiling is dime-covered.
in the bathroom,
mirrors crowd with ghosts.
all my father's shirts 
have mice-chewed holes.
we are a family of trap doors
or else we are being eaten. i find
thread-bare elbows. my hair fall out
in woven baskets. all the spoons
caving in. become binoculars.
i say, "let's go door to door"
only the thought is incomplete.
nothing to sell. we ring doorbells.
search our pockets for something
to offer. what we need
is a yard sale or a merchandise or
a new gadget that will
make breathing easier. a flashlight
full of fireflies. shoes that tell you
when danger is coming. when you
are about to catastrophe.
in our house, money is
a kind of angel. we say,
"do you have any money?" like
"do you have any grace?" "any holiness?" 
when i was small, i learned
to fish in purses. take only 
as much as wouldn't be noticed.
quarters. now each theft 
is a hole in the bathtub.
i plug them with my fingers.
for us, the world is always trying
to pour out. the point is
this has to happen quickly.
we don't have much longer until 
the urge to be voluminous passes
& we are just a ragged portrait again.
bugs in the carpet. dust 
on every windowsill. 
a man opens a rung doorbell 
& tells us to get a job. 
we say, "this is our job"
he turns into an empty wallet.
we pocket him in case we can
sell him later. no one
goes to bed rich. the day passes 
quicker than the one before
& the one before & the one before.
i get on dad's shoulders
to pluck a dime from the ceiling.
"just enough," he says 
even thought it's not. 
we eat pizza & consider
what we could make 
out of the box. an airplane maybe
or a cruise ship.

VR brother

in game mode, we talk about girls.
he says he is waiting for perfect legs
& a jar of tongues.
really, i stand in the living room
knocking over glass vases.
shattering. meanwhile, in VR
i am just trying to hug him.
the headset sings a song about distances.
since he converted to digital
we have almost nothing
to say. i tell him it is raining
& he changes the sky to be purple &
heavy with clouds. he says, "what rain?"
this is not dreaming. this is
emptying each room on the front lawn.
i'm thinking about how we used to
talk through the dark
of our shared bedroom 
as if night were a curtain.
him asking, "are you still awake?"
me pausing before whispering, "yes."
i ask him what he does all day 
& he transforms his hand into a blue jay. 
in VR, nothing is perminant
but especially not mistakes.
he runs away & returns. he chops down
a tree out of anger & instantly 
it grows back. he says,
"don't you wish the rest of the world
was so forgiving?" a part of me does.
a part of me wants to burn
my house down & turn around
to see it back. but, then,
there are the pieces of a wreck.
how, even if they are ash, 
they should be taken. held.
he shaves his head. he eats with his fingers.
tells me he is in love with
a patch of dandelions. they are a woman.
again, we are talking about girls.
always, we are talking about girls.
the specter of me having been one.
how she is downloadable now.
lives on a USB drive. wonder if 
she's met anyone. when i take off the headset
he doesn't say goodbye just
"what if you stayed?" i think about it
until the moon is the only eye left open.
i think of putting my life
under my tongue. walking around
with blue jays for hands. sitting beside
my girlhood & putting a piece
of caramel in her mouth. 

i buy stamps w/ ur face on them

going to mail a frenzy
& all the windows are tinted blue
to try to make me calm.
i want to know how to feel anger 
without letting it destroy me.
i rode a bicycle with no wheels
to ur house & waved my arms
until my shoulders throbbed.
my body is a shelter 
where my fury sits alone 
at a dining room table
& pretends to be at bliss
for the others. there are no others.
u were probably sleeping. u were
probably not thinking about
how ur face shows up everywhere for me.
in my knotted hair, ur nose.
my knees bear ur instructions.
come here come here. the mail person
asks me if i want any stamps 
& i say "could i see what you have?"
i have lived inside so many stamps.
cut my life into transience.
today i am thinking about
the train that used to know my feet.
used to say, i promise, long & wailing.
then, he is showing me 
booklets of mushroom cloud stamps
& crowbar stamps & suitecase stamps &
a fire escape stamp. i ask
anything else? & then there you are.
a dozen of ur face
replicated. perfect for sending
a feather to the tax collector.
yes, i bought them & now
ur house is on fire. the news
arrives now only in touch. 
i press my hand to the tremble
& hear not good. i wanted to buy 
hundreds of sheets. send ur face
to every doorstep. would that be revenge?
no, it is something extra.
but don't worry i didn't buy more
than just a sheet. u smile at me
& i tell u. now at least 
u will learn how to carry me.
ur face winks on the stamp. 

audiobook family

in the romper room
we kept all our ears on the shelves.
our tongues were out to pasture.
so, when i spoke, 
only yarn came out.
we repeat stories in my house
each time the details becoming
more like glass. my father promises
he was a soldier in the first world war.
tells me about gatling guns
& the trenches' spoiled dirt.
he crawls into headphones
just like me. i am a grub
or a worm. my brother lights 
the tree on fire & calls it a prophecy.
i try to put it out but just make it worse.
the story goes like this
"we are from
the time of antiques. a rusted telephone.
grinding eggs into dust." 
for hours we call for our tongues 
but they never come back.
i ask my mother, "tell me a story
without your lips." she closes her eyes
& i close mine. we share a little
dark kingdom where every mushroom 
is a telephone line to the underworld.
in the whole house there is
only one plug & we fight hungrily for it,
especially at night.
teeth like airplanes. 
clamoring to hear what the wall
has to say. gives us stories
about drowned girls & hitchhikers. 
when i get my turn 
my ears hum. i forget to worry
about my tongue or drawers full 
of spare teeth. i am just
a pocket knife being opened 
& opened. wooden dining room tables.
my father, digging a trench 
to sleep in. i go with him,
carrying my ears 
in my backpocket. 

elbows 

i go to a butcher
to buy my heart. he sits 
at a card table with his pigs
talking to them 
as if they're brothers.
come to learn they are in fact 
brothers. my elbows have been
growing barnacles
& briars. i lean to much
on anything & everything i can find.
going out to the fields
i see the butcher as he burries 
the cow bones & the pig bones
& the chicken bones 
so they don't haunt him.
it is too late for me. 
every few months i roast my heart
& have to find a new one.
i lived for years with
a plastic bag blowing around
in my chest. this morning i 
just want what is easy.
see my reflection in a jar
of pickled hooves. wonder if
i could peel my elbows off
like the skin of an orange.
i don't want to hinge
anymore. just want to lay flat
& talk to the animal shapes
in the clouds. the butcher 
is not my father but i am 
pretending he is. i want a man
to survey me & tell me
i look just like i'm supposed to.
sometimes i buy mason jars 
to put my anger in. hope they turn
to raspberry preserves.
instead, they reek like vinegar.
jitter on their shelves 
waiting to scream. i have not screamed 
in years. in the fields
all the bones are screaming.
i wonder if that is what it would take
for me to let go. all the meat
peeled back. just the raw bone
strewn about. tall grass 
wears ticks like necklaces.
says "hush, hush," to the bones.
the bones don't listen.
oh how i would love to be told what to do
& not listen. i rub new ointment
on my elbows. it's supposed to
make me smooth. i'm not even sure
i was meant to be soft.

harvesting

again, i plant my eyes 
in a clay flower pot.
he asks me,
"what kind of fruit do you bear?"
from my ribs, watermelons.
on the right night, no fruit at all.
i am a crowd of asparagus.
wait for orchids.
all my daughters are ticks.
try to drink the blood 
of my knee caps.
then, a dandelion flock.
selling their dresses 
after only one wear.
baby birds fall from trees
like diamonds. i carry 
a can opener down into hell.
what will be exported 
from my mouth? 
a tooth, like a tail light.
my backyard full of glass.
the broken parasol.
girlfriends wading into lakes.
my ghost has a lighter,
walks out into a drying herd
of wheat. soon to be fire.
that is what i am. soon & sooner.
paring knives skittering
across the beach
on their toothpick legs.
did i say paring knives?
i meant plovers. i always get
those mixed up. what does it mean
to fed one another?
sometimes, i turn off the lights
just to look for another mouth
i haven't traced yet.
teaching me to swallow,
he placed a plum in between my teeth.
i dare myself to eat all 
the pits. where i die
a grove will sprout & fight 
for oxygen. a boy will sit
beneath me. eat more purple than he should.
stomach full of my fists.
fluttering with my anger 
& my exhaustion & my love.
each morning
he will open his mouth
& find a flower
on his tongue.

electronic bird sanctuary

we visit abandon
with feather handfuls.
a guest book of fingers.
haven't your hands ever
flown south for the winter?
the last bird lives
inside a labratory 
where, in virtual reality,
he thinks he's flying.
once, while rubbing my back,
you asked if you could plant a seed.
i refused but, while i slept,
you did it anyway. 
wings grew. i cursed you. airplanes 
mistook me for their children.
my talons glinted
in the light of a fake candle.
when i say "sanctuary"
i mean a museum. the difference
between being quietly watched
& watching quietly.
i flew above my life. you watched me
with binoculars. 
my eyes have cameras inside.
i take a video of you 
for a future generation
who wonders what we did 
to remember the birds.
we talk all night 
of building a structure for ghosts
to roost. instead, visit again
the mechanism. rivers of wings.
calling like children.
everyone is hungry. branches sit
like mother-shoulders.
a handbag full of bird feed.
holding hands underneath
a rusted sun. the birds 
are not real. have not been
for decades. i have a man come
dismantle my wings.
he does so with his bare hands.
i do not tell you. 
you have more seeds & more men.
the sanctuary glints.
a door knob the size of jupiter.
no one is awake but me.
i enter & i sit on the ground.
robotic wind. chain link gods.
the birds gather to greet me.