bikini contest

i want to wear my body as loosely as possible.
have you summered your fat yet? i have 
a hammock where i remember to be greedy
for feet. remove the inhales i don't need.
bleaching autumn from every hair. 
above the sun is rubber & ready.
i enter each photograph legs first.
feel the stage beneath ask 
what name girls used to call me
when i was just a handful of salt.
nothing prepared me for how much i would want.
cutting out all the hands from a magazine.
thin beautiful fingers. stream rising
from hair as i become a curtain. 
it is easy judge quests of gaze-collection
but i want you to know when i am
the glossy parrot, i laugh whole diamonds. 
when anyone a girl or a boy or a person
extends a finger & i stand on it's length,
i feel all my sundials spin with fire.
hold all the fabric i need 
balled up in my hand. how tight a space
can you corral your everything. our strategies
of revelation. here is where 
my secrets begin. i pose & the crowd  
is a broom closet. they stare
as if this were a brush with a god. 

amusement park mirage

we have been walking for
eight years when we come upon 
the nest of steel & wood.
a bird flies from one of our mouths
to the other. what we want 
is a boiling laughter.
one that can loosen all our bones
& remind us that despite 
the cyborg parts, we are human.
aren't we? another says,
"i no longer believe in delight."
she'll soon turn into a red button.
watching the machines move
i remember how as children 
the moon used to come down
for one night & one night only
to dance with us in the playroom.
we use handkerchiefes to cover
our chapped lips. all the windows
in the world are vacant. 
searching trash cans for styrafoam
& straws. i fill my pockets 
with colorful garbage.
don't know if i can board 
the ghost hurtling through cloud.
i've taken so much work 
to stay alive & now all i crave
is monsterous movement.
oh the feeling of air fiercely 
across base skin. for so long
all i've been is foot steps
in the grit planet. here.
here maybe i could plunder 
a feather. find a well in the sky 
& drink it dry all by myself.
a dream of selfishness. 
riding a cycle alone. not letting
anyone else cling to my ankles.
we get closer just to find 
a chain link fence
tall as an old oak tree.
we line up in a row, fingers
through the metal knots. 
nothing at all but a cliff 
on the other side. did we all 
see the coasters. blinking 
gumdrop lights. the threat
of abandon. or was it just me?
i am too afraid of sharing
what i thought i saw. or, really
the fact that i only thought i saw it.
instead we agree it is 
a dead end. where dead really mean 
emptied. i am terrified
knowing now what i really want
is a beast to rip me from myself.
play with my body like a doll 
& place me back from where i came.
even the moon is dead. 

indigo tide

this is the year the water decides
to be bluer each day. i agree.
a needed direction. 
we watch, standing on the shore
holding up paint swatches 
naming her new face. blueberry wine.
lavender azure. if i could i would
put my body in a raft
& send her out to discover her own atoll. 
then, the rest of me could be
the ghost i've always wanted.
once, we bathed together 
& the ocean rose from the faucet.
loud & full of urchins. sea foam 
& white sand in the drain.
cold, i pressed my hand
to your back to feel warmth. 
like anyone, all my sadness comes
as water. a thicket of wind.
i miss how you used to find me
with starfish in my hair. 
i crave discovery. you ripping me
from a bed of kelp. floating past 
monsters in their depths
as the blue around us verges
on purple. they remember
how in the early times
all the water used to be red
& thick. in their ancientness 
they wonder where we are headed.
somedays i almost ask you the same.
my body finds new land. i can feel it.
lays down & lets moss gross
across her chest. foot prints
in the sand leading to water.
when i say "we" i mean just me
& the desire for your company.
i bend down to the water.
notice each grain of salt 
glistening as a school of diamonds.
i ask the deep, "what can i do
to help?" she greets me with 
a swell. waves applause breaking.
palms to a drum's face.
the death of bell. i do not know
what she is asking for.
i give her a memory of us 
by the beach. made miniature 
in the shadows of great shoreline rocks.
two of my face in your sunglasses.
the water used to be green then.  

metabolic panel

tell me i was the right function
& that all my life 
will be a fit of honey & light.
needle enters like a hand into water.
divers searching for a ship wreck
where all the jellyfish came from.
algae eating treasure.
i think of all the ways
we write language into bodies.
the doctor's glass eyes 
& the painting that hang
in labs. a fallow field.
little white dog. lopsided tree.
i crave & reject all & everything
that could be found in me.
plead with doctors to hear
the ways my body rings, 
especially at night 
when there aren't supposed be bells.
the words 'glucose' & 'creatintine'
know nothing about fallen leaves
& how, from my window, 
i named their colors. asked my body
to be a real thing again
as if it ever had been. 
i learn the world is a spell
of un-limited limits. 
the stairs which used to carry me
are private mountains. 
me, the sum of the results
& their eye-wide stare.
it becomes harder & hard 
to know what is my flesh 
& what is a signal. numbers emerge
for numerology's sake.
i have a chart the size 
of a bible. scrolling through 
a scripture on the aftermaths. 
i used to breath pollen in 
& exhale blossoms. watch the fruit grow
on the floor of the living room.
my blood arrives like gems.
rubies rushing into a cave.
blue gloved hands. phlebotomist says,
"only one more."

in the bone thrift shop

we hold up skulls
in the bone thrift store
asking each other
"what would i look like
inside the cavern of lion?"
& "could my body fit these ribs?"
we drop off spare metatarsals
gathered in plastic bags &
a femur none of us knew
what to do with. 
these bones will be priced
& then join the others
on dusty shelves. there is
no blood at all in the store.
we leave that for parking lots 
& knife thoughts. instead, we wander
like bed sheets. souls thick as dough.
curious, i am wondering
what of myself is housed in bone. 
could a whales finger let me know
the sound a quiet ocean keeps?
teach me to yearn myself deeper.
sometimes i dig a hole in the yard
in search of more bones.
stand in the crater & stare up
at the squirrel skull moon.
i seldom find one but when i do
i treat it like an addition
to the house. my father used to talk
dreamily about building 
another room onto our home.
this is how i think of my body like
maybe all i need is 
another space. a new limb 
or organ bunker. at the shop, bones
are often used & fractured.
i take some anyway. a snapped tibia
& nearly shattered vertabrae.
hold them in my hands. let them
windchime & rustle. to rid them
of lingering spirit
i could hang them from the tree
in our backyard. instead i'm wearing them
before we even excite. they sting
& tremble. oh monster body,
i love your insistence that i not rest
for in this blurr i find
the most dangerous parts
of creaturehood. you say 
"will you love me with a boar skull?"
i say, "i already have three
just inside my chest." 

strip malls on mars

we stopped to gaze at vacany.
empty shop windows & a dry cleaner.
the man at the desk, mannequinning
his way through summer's late dusk.
around here everyone has stopped 
having a body a long time ago.
even the grocery stores 
carry around rotten fruit like 
old pairs of eyes.
our car has a soul & begs 
for air. driving barefoot. 
kissing your knuckles.
in rural Pennsylvania 
highways spill themselves 
like confessions. our car 
was made of space ship & 
in honor of the galaxy 
we stopped to look at that early moon.
her peach-face buttoned
into curtains of blue-grey clouds.
there is a sense of emptying.
this is a place to open a door
& shove out all the furniture.
front lawns our seas of shoulders.
not far away, cow tell their young
about their own secret constellations.
you say to me "i heard mars
is out tonight." we search the sky.
pick stars like blue berries.
up the road a gas station lives 
in the hopes of encountering
a single astronaut. we don't find 
the little red planet. instead
night crashes all around.
whirls milky ways. comet tails 
or tail lights. lightning bugs
speak of dead galaxies
& only we are there to listen. 

tender face

i use my femur for the soup bone
& flesh petals into water.
see how primordial i can get
in this gas stove's heat.
putting my hands over 
a blue fire. where did all 
my moisture go? i used to breathe
steam like a jungle. then winter came
with grandmother hands. i feed myself.
spoon carried in my teeth.
an egg where a future star shakes 
& begs to sleep ten-thousand 
more years. we should elope.
we should get married in 
darien connecticut where 
eternity is instanteous. 
i met a man who i wanted to
give one of my bones to. 
tell him to go home. dip it
into a pot of water. boil 
for as long as he needs.
there is not enough shared salt.
my fingers chirp like crows.
i take the harvest 
to winged altar. god has
the eyes of a scallop.
myriad blue & speckled. 
bathing in cream, i ask the cow
if she thinks i'm soft enough.
she is uncertain so pretends she
didn't hear me at all. 
touch me like a pondering of dough.
knuckles to knots. my stomach full
of dragonflies. the broth gleams
golden as summer squash.
i take the wooden spoon 
to the mouth in the garden.
brush dirt from his lips
to let him taste. he says,
"mmmmmmm" & i know i was useful. 

soap dinner

coffee table planet
in the mirage of a great apartment.
all i want is chewing
myself pristine. bubbles
in the arctic circle
& a sail boat made of exhaust.
writing "faggot" in the dirt
of my car hood, a passerby thought
"embelm" & "that will show him."
everything about me is a secret.
some parts even to myself
& then i'm surprised like 
"did i really do that?"
for soap, i prefer as green as they come.
my father was an irish spring.
i wonder if he washes his feet
or if he just stands there
watering as if he were a fern.
i take a wand & blow bubbles
to chase around the dining room.
the neighbors deserve my sound.
we don't want to know each other 
at all anymore. soap dishes to sleep in 
when the night is already cold.
oh well. oh well. washing
the car is futile instead 
i kneel in the tub. lather
to the bone. glisten. 
i'm the skull of a dead ox.
i'm the rib cage of a whale.
blue smelling wheels turn. this is
what i crave. feasting on my clean. 
nothing has ever been so butter. 
was just compost in a boy's mouth. 
handful of egg shells. don't you see
how i need this. motions 
of circles & orbits. scrubbing
a cycle from hand until
they're just rear view mirrors.

this is just an exact replica of our house on noble street

here are the geese 
& their lake we cannot find. here
the generator & here the winter storm.
we dress in our separate cisterns
& decide it is too late to go to mass.
god is a pile of leaves &
there is a dragon we name after
a dead sister. pots & pans
the size of thumbs. when i set out
to make this replica i wanted 
a place to play out my childhood.
try to remember how i would talk
to bruises. name them like new continents.
pictured myself living on the purple dirt.
from across the room the house 
is average as any. i tell myself 
"that is a normal childhood."
lights flash gold & green behind curtains.
in the yard a sink hole eats
the old swingset. no one is 
big enough for the kitchen table.
saying grace. my dollhouse brother.
someone is sewing in the crawlspace.
it is me. he is making a quilt 
of all the nights he tries
to fit together. laying open 
on the roof like a piece of red meat.
the alarm clock becoming 
a nurture sound. here is what you must do
to bring the next year. 
rituals for dinner. the flash light 
i used to keep my bedroom door's mouth
clear of bodies. a portrait of a saint.
her hands folded in her lap.
she's praying to no longer be
my namesake. i tell her "this is 
just a model house." she says & leaves.
i put the structure to sleep.
a blanket over everything. this is what
i wanted for so many year
of my life. a kind of swaddled dark.
no you don't have to anymore.
i hold a spoonful of light
& save it to feed the moon.
sweet & chalky. the sun carries 
an army of bare feet. there was 
so much love. there was a bed of nails.
there was a dirt basement 
where only my ribs could sleep. 

margarine knives

we stood at the crumbed counter
where ants carried fractions
towards their hideaways.
our walls teemed with them--
not just ants, but lady bugs 
& centipedes. i wanted to be
the clean glide. silver
& the smooth elbow. how a butter knife 
promises everything will be 
this easy. tornados of boys.
one is my boat like a spaceship.
a razor scrape on my ankle.
my mother & i ate each a half
of an english muffin. her fingers
like ladder rungs. her brown hair
pulled from her face 
by a crocodile clip. i wanted
to come apart in morsels.
be carried, funeral style away.
become part passageway part 
insect colony. but what is a family 
but a fridge door left open?
a sharing of hungers.
margarine as yellow as dandelions.
golden glow on the shoulder
of the knife. what else could be
so clear & vivid. my tongue 
like a doormat. we took turns 
knocking on each other's teeth.
i love her more now than ever.
regret that she has heard 
me enumerate all the ways 
i no longer want to be.
tell the ants we are delicious.
a mirror of a blade. is a knife
still a knife if it only asks
to sigh? more ants come
like necklaces.