tooth gay

a dentist lives in a tiny cage
in the corner of my bedroom
where he teaches me
about decay. i feed him 
newspaper & spearmint. there are 
metal devices for excavating 
all the gravel from between
canines. dogs are running 
back & forth across the moon again.
pillow pulled over my face.
i saw another many yesterday 
with his own teeth for earrings
& i wanted to sleep with him.
saying, "open up your mouth
i want to see craters."
comets are just the teeth of gods
or else something important
is falling apart & losing its pieces.
a metal knot once fell
out from beneath my car 
& i tossed it into the bushes.
the rocket ship i refuse to fire up.
i want perfection & i'm willing
to pull each tooth out of my skull.
i'm asking what it means 
to save the pieces of our bodies.
jar of teeth on the shelf. 
necklace of teeth. the dentist promises 
he'll chew his way out
if i don't release him. 
i laugh because i know
he won't actually do it. 
all talk & more talk. i want to know
if he has a lover but instead
i put at tarp over his container
so i can worry about that tomorrow.
what are you gleefully 
putting off? i find a mirror 
& decide which tooth i would like
to gift the man. ask it nicely
to become a beetle & crawl out
onto my palm. good tooth. good tooth.
it listens. i put it in 
a ring box. will you populate 
a skull with me? that's how
i'll ask. picture flowers bursting
from every corner of bone.
i want to be one of 
the worshippers of bone. 
to one day carry all my teeth in hand
as tokens for the afterlife.
i'll see the other many there.
he will also be ready.

the school of failed marine biologists 

tell me what you'd like to save 
when you grow up?
when i was small i said, 
"possibly whales."
my first choice was dinosaurs
but those were too far gone.
filled every open vessel with
salt water. stood on the ocean shore
& pretended to be a conductor
pulling waves in & out. 
jellyfish washed up like ancient hats.
then, i almost drowned in a river.
a shark came carrying a prophecy.
he said, "you are not & then
you are not again." i asked,
"i am not what?" i assumed he meant
i am not becoming what i thought i would.
amounting to something 
is very overrated. i used to think
i would ride a boat into 
the open water. talk to kelp forests.
mend the fins of dolphins.
discover the written languages
of octopi. as children we have such 
loftly ideas of what it means
to be an anything. i want to be
what i thought a marine biologist was.
endless conversations
with water mouthed animals.
no fear of drowning at all. 
a scuba dive into the lair 
of a giant squid. don't give me
science like data. i want mystery 
& air bubble rising to the surface.
under the waves 
the sun becomes a grandmother. 
sources of light. i want to be
a marine biologist still
but wanting means something different
each year i am alive. plunging.
a whale carcass feathering open.
how deep the world goes 
& how most of my day is 
an ode to sidewalks & streets. 
i can of course try again right now. 
i drive to the ocean
to issue an apology for not 
drowning. the water does not
remember as it can not possibly remember
everyone who thinks they can mother it.
how can you mother the mother?
the answer is. you cannot.
you can only listen & listen
until both your lips 
are the same. 

tape recorder 

the device was a snake machine
where the church women
gave my father his bread.
what we do to be remembered;
i will not be part of that. 
going out to dinner
to celebrate another year
with voices. i told the tape recorder
i was planning to overwrite
my life anyway & start
a new saved file anyway. on my back
i took voice notes about 
the texture of broken glass.
a handful of ice cubes
i carried to a chalice 
in the middle of a tongue.
the tape recorder arrives 
beneath almost every desk i sit at.
remove it & place it inside 
a conch shell. try hearing me now.
it could be a prank by angels
or, worse, a prank by god.
he has a bin of tapes he keeps
in a basket by his couch.
what must it be like to create something
& hear it talk. this is how i feel
about my poems sometimes.
look how it talks! another tape recorder
crawls with eight legs.
is technically a spider 
but is definitely listening.
if i sound paranoid i promise
i'm not. i'm just being aware
of my surroundings. at any time
there are at least three recordings
taking place. i don't need to be
a catelog but i do need
to be a parascope. the mountains
are full of tapes. all of them
unfilled yet. the taperecorder 
has an idea of what it's looking for.
i put my teeth inside a jar
& shake it. nothing at all
to listen to here. at least not
until my father comes back
for worshipping god.
he'll come around. he always does.

in the ghost car city

i am driving through 
a river of greying milk. 
the snow is not snow at all
but a colony of perfect spiders.
the park lots stretch far & wide
like pastures. i feed my car
handfuls of lockets.
she purs & whirls & sputters.
i met a demon underneath 
the bridge & he told me
if i grind my bones into dust
& feed the birds i will be
someday a god. i did as he said
over over again. the birds
feasted. take what you can get
or at least that's what
my father always said.
a neon sign says, "24/7"
& i say, "so am i."
a ghost car pulls up & honks 
asking for me to climb aboard.
i have something to live for
or at least that's what
i tell my bank account 
in the depth of night
when i check to make sure
i am still alive. a pipe breaks
& the basement is converted 
into an aquarium. my rent goes up
because now we get the pleasure
of looking at sharks. 
the ghost cars dance 
with one another. circles 
& the brightest headlights.
of course i want to be taken.
extracted from my life
like a blue potato. instead
the potential danger keeps me rooted.
i ask one car, "would you have my home
by midnight?" the car laughs
& the crows laugh & the city laughs.
there is no midnight.
not for us.

time zone

in my pocket of air 
i decided it would always be
seven-thirty at night
because that is when
the moon flowers 
whisper & when no one 
can take back an afternoon.
my mouth is full of paper crowns.
did you know that somewhere it is
definitely three in the morning.
whole streets woven asleep.
i stayed up until 
everything was glass.
a well-kept secret. 
now it is a sun feast. 
everyone in the street 
with forks & hunger.
i never wanted to be
a rule-follower. i am not early
i am incredibly on time.
wrapping door knobs 
& sending them to my old lovers.
who needs a closed life.
everyone can see my time anyway.
what others secrets
do i have to keep?
my time zone has recently been
kissing another so sometimes
i am accidentally one hour fast.
hand cuffing myself 
to a grandmother clock.
she scolds me for listening
to men's versions of time.
i ask her what she means
& she says she can't tell me
at least not anymore.
my hands spin like minutes.
in the pantry
there are the ghosts of
arrivals past. all are knocking
on the insides of doors.
i say, "you are already inside."
spare key under my tongue.
righteously, we are 
storming the morning
& taking all slivers of gold.
i fill my pockets
& you fill your backpack.
you say we need to run 
but it's too late.
like i said. in my breath
it's just seven-thirty again.
a sigh of relief & saddness.
i wanted to wake up 
with snakes in my hair.
instead it is time again
to put every finger to rest.
tuck me in & 
please if you remember
wind the clock for me
until it's as tight
as a closed fist.

sick day

i find myself in a green cocoon. 
reaching for a tissue 
& pulling out a dove. my body
is a school of tuna 
headed for & headed for. i want to be
ceaseless & senseless 
with with blood. i wake up
early as the grass. take my face off
& put it back on
hoping all will adjust.
my ache is like another person
until i remember it is only myself.
trying to resist the urge
to see piecemeal. 
just my bones & my joints
telling me they are through with
this fog. asking "where are
the flowers?" i tell my bones
we have to sleep five more days
if we want to see any.
pushing up through the dirt.
there are my thumbs.
i pluck them & say,
"there you are."
the crocus knocks on the window
to ask if i am alright.
i admit i am definitely sick
but going to ignore it as long
as humanly possible. 
unhealthy i know but how else
am i supposed to keep going?
if i say "this is a sick day"
the snails will come 
to take me & all my productivity away.
an alarm in another apartment sounds
& i pretend it is just 
a wayward frog. to hell with
having an obligation. only i
can have obligations. 
promises to keep & all that. 
soon i will cut my hair. so much for 
becoming a lion. the throat lozenge
tastes like a little red giant.
a little self on my tongue.
sometimes i convince myself
i have everything i need 
growing already inside me.
then my body laughs like this
& says, "you are a day away."
the moon comes with a knife.
cuts a hole in the ceiling
to see if i'm alright.
i wave. the moon waves back
& lets me rest. i don't want
to rest but i do.

percussion instruments 

we used to play the song
on our father's face.
mallets plucked from 
the shoulders of dead ash trees.
he laid perfectly still 
until rage turned him
into a pot of coals.
i came from a land of animal skin
& thumbs. from what do you make
your collisions? i dig 
looking for the old legendary well.
the one with amethyst water
& a guardian snake. 
everyone with my blood
has been bitten. a venom of bells.
dipping fingers in water 
to ice skate the rims
of chalices. i wanted
to ring when struck. instead
i just crumpled as a dried flower
so he hit & hit until i was a bell.
soft mallets so as to not shatter
the singer. gentleness is never
wasted. i have been made to feel
it is something only for drummers.
palms on my back. 
spoons dancing like newlyweds.
i don't usually mind.
there's pleasure in hearing
exactly what sound your bones
have been taught to make.
i once fell all the way 
down a mountain. when i stopped
at the bottom the sound echoed.
i heard my knees & my shoulders
& my fingers & my teeth.
everything vibrated for years.
in a quiet room 
all i could hear 
was my own body. my ringing blood.
i told everyone it stopped 
but, really, i still hear it 
every day. i make the sound
of a river reversing direction.
hands clapping in fear.
then, finally, a metal drum 
imitating rain. 

i want to unravel completely

with & without blood.
peeling the red skin from an apple.
hunks of heel off potato faces. 
where a ball of yarn 
spills its guts. i am confessing
i no longer want to be continous.
give me every punctuation.
i'll plant my fingers & wait
for them to grow into bonsai. my tongue
in a terrarium. what kind of
adhesive have you used to 
barricade the doors of your self?
i take my father's guilt 
& his father's guilt & slam 
everything shut. a glass full
of gasoline. wooden afternoons.
splinters from running my hand
across my own arms. tell me i can
do nothing from now until
the sun puts the pot to boil.
i'm jealous of dead birds 
& children with fenced in yards.
tracing my chest scars with a finger
i think, "i would plant a row of trees here."
but i refuse any kind of growth.
i'm always doing that. claiming
to be reborn before the funeral.
right now, i just want to see the machine
vivisected. little heart 
like a strawberry. i want to go rotten.
want to bloom white lacy mold
from the palms of my hands.
let me be finally useless. 
using a walking stick carved 
from my grandmother's leg. 
how i come from a family 
of gravediggers by which i mean
we dig our own. work until
the day is liquid. holding 
a drinking glass to catch what's left.
i don't know if i can though. i don't
know how to dismantle.
i think of uprooting weeds
& i'm not sure if i'm the weeds
or the roots or the breath 
legs make when freed of dirt. 
i'm sending my fruits off 
to become planets. i'm drying out
in the sun. i'm holding seeds 
in my hands.

dinner guest

i'm inviting you into my plate
which also means inviting you to sit
on a ledge. ladle for a heart,
i am prone to giving more and more
until there is nothing but
ice to eat. ice is delicous at least.
we have a grandmother clock. we have 
a back door no one knows about
but me. cleaning the microwave again
on a tuesday night & thinking 
there would be less uses for my hands
if i were a shoe box person. 
instead, i am the drawer of knives.
don't be scared though, first and foremost 
a knife is a tool of service.
let me cut up a melon for you.
it's almost ripe but good enough for me.
a palette is a mouth 
& a homeland for casual cathedral ceilings.
you are hugging yourself & standing 
outside. i hear you take out
your napkin & place it on your lap.
i have a peep hole from which i can sadly only 
glimpse the universe 
& not actually the outside.
is the universe outdoors
or indoors? we have no wine glasses.
so, i'm sorry i lied. have you 
ate with your hands this month? i do 
when i'm alone but now you're here
so i'm too embarassed. when i can
i have a sense of boundlessness.
your knuckles are made of laugh lines.
i have nothing planned to eat
but in the cupboard we hoard 
pasta & cans of little vegetables.
when i said, "i'm inviting you"
i meant i feel like if i eat alone
another night i'll be one day closer
to becoming a fork. tell me 
about your own tables. did your mother
like to cook? when you see a wooden spoon
what song does your body remember?
mine speaks in falling blue jays.
their bodies like shards of sky.
i think of the clouded front window.
a burnt piece of toast
split in half. one for me
& one for you. come again, i say 
with the door open. you have left
so long ago. all the plates ring 
like bells. i eat a clementine 
with my hands & pretend
i am prying open a knot 
of all my wanting. 

running with scissors

i'm not tempting disaster 
i am sleeping its nest.
last night a monster came
& died in the middle of the street.
all the cars put on their high beams
to drive around the body.
at least i trust my ability to fall.
my father used to help me practice.
we would go in the yard & 
he'd push my chest hard & fast
so that i'd tumble over.
learn to curve your body
like a question mark 
& you'll never break.
i would just just rocking horse 
to the dirt. chose my favorite knife 
& steal it from the kitchen. 
sometimes i am meat & sometimes
i am pear guts. running towards
no one at all. a bridge with 
outstretched arms. everything
to be done with the tool.
carving faces in the oldest trees.
i will cut snow flakes & hang them
from the ceiling of my paper life.
chasing after a shadow 
slipped lose from its body.
i am not the good samaritan.
there is little room for stopping
if i am going to deliver myself
to the mouth i'm aiming for.
a stop sign faints & no one 
replaces it. monster's body 
becomes bones. headlights make 
cathedral shadow shapes until
a whole year has past & it's mostly dust.
we don't talk about those kinds
of demise. public & unspoken.
i cut a lock of a lover's hair
with my scissors while they sleep.
they don't notice or don't mention it.
i pocket it until spring.
when the dirt is warm again
i press the strands into the dirt
& run far away, the scissors
still in hand.