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. 

manner school for eavesdropping girls

the fork goes to the left
of your grief. the knife, well,
you know what a knife does already.
my uncle used to tell me 
if i didn't get manners i was going
to become a mud room. i remember how
my fingers begged to be utensils.
their plunge into a landscape of cake.
frosting knuckles. my teeth were 
wooden staircases into a woman
i would not become. kissing mushrooms
on their foreheads. carrying a dead bird
to a burial. i listened to 
well water's gossip which told me
my uncle would never uncurve his spine.
his hair which grew like brush
around the base of a mountain.
i wake up with strings tied
to every finger. remember you are
supposed to be presentation.
i don't want anyone to be proud of me.
a husband buried under the table.
he counts his days in foot falls.
i over heard him say once
that i was too embarassing 
to take to the moon. i cut a hole
in my window & held the whole moon
with my hand. soft melted butter.
what did he know about the moon.
how to fold a napkin. how to chew
like a prophet. at church 
holding a smaller version of myself
in a metal bird cage. nothing
about me was meant to be holy.
i am a playground for better
or for worse. the manner school 
was first a structure & then
a doll house. vivid in a single bone.
i go there with a dinner bell.
sometimes practice again. just to prove
i could if i wanted to. braiding my hair.
girl's head only for mirrors.
all manners are about being
consumable. the fork always
to my left. here is what i will be
for your mouth. i will slouch.
i will run like fire. i will be
the family shovel bearer
& you will still look for ways 
to swallow bites of me. 

collect yourself

it was lake making season
or else it was the cup 
always placed to catch
the ceiling leak. letting myself
believe in rebirth today
& dreaming of coming back
as a whole colony of ants.
how that multitude might let me
sigh like i can't right now.
i love blaming all my problems
on my current form. what does anyone
make of fingers? i use mine
to scoop handfuls of sand
see how long i can hold on
until there's nothing left 
but one single grain. once 
i asked a boy to love me by
handing him a needle & a thread.
he sewed his name into my shoulder.
i keep as many vessels as i can.
a sail ship in a forever closet
& a cabinet brimming with jars.
you never know just what form
a combustion will take.
i spent a year driving 
my car in circles. wore 
a trench in the road. tires turned
to ash. another time i knit squares
for weeks onend. a tiny dead god quilt.
none of the monsters liked it 
so i tossed the stiches one by one
at passing airplanes. today i am
gnat sized & passengered. 
there are playing cards
all over the floor of my skull.
the first one i pick up 
is a jack. next a queen. 
i want to be clear that this
has never been harvest. that would mean
intention & bloom & sugar. what i do 
is collection. putting the sun
back & reminding him to scream.
voluntarily, i go without words 
for a whole week until my tongue 
is a porch light. in the glow
i pluck earrings from the carpet.
reminding all my corners 
that there is a body they know.
shelter in the wildest blues.
to tell you the truth though
i look forward to spilling.
that exhale & no more. no more bones
or borders. my self-pollination.
fruit comes like blown glass.
i get ready to eat permission
all the way to the wrist.

teething

when i was a shark 
i spit necklaces into my hands 
& hung them from every low branch.
the ocean was a field 
of capture. splitting enough
to snag a man on his way to sirens.
guilt became a red planet.
the pin between clouds. when you have
thousands of teeth, what is 
the loss of one razor? underneath
my pillows i am always the jeweler.
purveyor of sharp children. 
snakes come to gaze. men the size
of flutes on their hands & knees.
dimes ready & pleading. they want
to be dissected by me. want to
caress the edges of my mouth.
i am not all that unlike a pear tree.
visiting the bottom of a bell
i found a whole chapel of blood.
opened wide in the mirror.
saw my father's face at
the back of my throat.
swallowing harder would never
get him to go down. they will
always come with more. 
more rain. more waterfall. more 
chesnuts. for every tooth
another waits like a sibling.
three sons. all of us shedding
our bodies. i keep the teeth
in a shoe box. shake it 
to hear my own volume.
one brother loses hair.
the other, limbs. i plant teeth
in the dirt. slipt them into 
riverbeds. when i was a shark
no one put a thumb
to my lips. i was just a darkness
only a bathtub could hold.
now though, now when i loom
it comes with jars & taproots.
i bury a skeleton of myself.
float on my back in a lake
where old mouths go to remember
how to speak. more teeth come.
always more. 

angel phone call

at the pay phone 
there's a number written
above the keypad in sharpie.
beside it reads, "call 
for any angel" & so i do.
i am at a telephone booth
in the middle of a galaxy 
of broken beer bottles 
& headlines. all around
people are walking their cars
on leashes & i think
"i have to talk to god 
about this." catholcism taught me
to be always a messenger.
passing along a tongue
wrapped in tin foil. the phone
rings & rings until the moon 
goes rancid. spills melon water
all over the street. a stray dog
turns into a shopping cart.
inside the booth i picture
the angel arriving
& scrawling his number quickly 
before moving onto the next haunting.
maybe on his day off. maybe watching
a television show where angels
have to be mortal for a day.
shaking his head he thinks
"this could never be me." i rehearse
how i will answer. "yes angel,
this is robin & i am quickly 
losing." then he'll ask me
follow-up questions. the longer
i wait the more the ringing 
starts to sound like zippers 
or church bells. the reciever itself
pastas into a macaroni elbow. 
i have never been so hungry.
help me, help me please i think
as the telephone booth shivers.
it is not winter but also not
any other season. i have a place
to remember to be. buses are filled
with sardines. every door is a lid.
i speak between chimes. i say,
"it is already morning," when i meant
"i will give up soon." everyone 
should probably give up more 
than we do. humans value persistence
& trying hard too much.
i'm ready, angel, to just
become a walking man. someone
who everyone passes & thinks
"i have seen him before." alright.
i keep thinking "alright."
but i can't let go. there this thought
"if i just wait one second more
everything will come together
& he will answer." he does not.
the city braids street lamps.
you are probably talking
to your plants. i regret everything
& nothing about my architecture.
i hold the phone away from me.
give it three more chances.
nothing. hang up. find a duck feather
at my feet. we are each other's 
evidence. outside 
the city is burning blue. 

canned afternoon

we talked about methods 
of preservation: salt & sugar & vinegar.
pickles in their shoulder colonies.
you laughed when i said 
i wanted to be as green as you.
you said sometimes you scream 
at the woods & sometimes you 
break a dozen twigs until your heart
is a flock of wasps. then, i admitted
i cut the tips off my fingers once
in a rush of fear. i worried there would be
no more periods to end sentences. 
i had decided i would become 
that closure i needed. together,
we filled jars with words like
"someday." i believed we would be
the first humans to live to at least 300.
thus, we had more than enough time
to catch garter snakes & name them
after boys who wouldn't 
love us back. get bit & let the bites
glisten like jewels. the thing is,
everything in this jar is already over. 
we have no more carpet for our bare feet
or window whose light could make
anyone a boy. eating toast 
for the sunset because she had 
no mouth. i won't speak for you
but i think i ate enough salt 
for a lifetime. tied my shoe laces
in ladders to the next planet.
you said when you did die you would want
to be frozen or canned like peaches.
i pictured your body a statue.
your fingers like fits of clouds.
sugar in your eyes. lids rolling down hills
to the lake where all the fish
dream of legs. i said, "i want that too"
even though really i craved 
the opposite. a release. humid hands.
lifted in a breath to the clouds.
no weight left in me. turning pink
in the fading day. blushing 
like i always did with you. 
is this how the sun makes sense
of the moon? i take a fork now 
& eat pickles at the kitchen table.
your porch twists. turns lattice.
remains cured in brine.