gummy shark

water is a sugar spirit.
we used to eat handfuls 
of monsters from a sweating sunset.
playing the horizon lines
like lute strings. a plastic bag
houses all my remaining needs:
to devour every wound, to swim
in water clear as glass,
to feel every circle ever turned.
in the sky above birds
for a ring to cut a hole in cloud.
water pours to start the next ocean.
in the bath tub as children
our bodies were just vessels 
for the final time. in a photograph
a shark lurks beneath the soapy water.
a reminder of how every water
is deeper than it appears.
stepping into a puddle & falling
through the city only to emerge
in a bed room for ghosts.
the blue of golf courses
is supernatural by which i mean
it carries worlds in its mouth.
really, we must eat. 
trac each other's earlobs 
like guard rails. pour sharks out
on the sidewalk & wait for them
to adapt. i grew a gill once
from so many years of living underwater.
took a thumb's worth of foundation
to hide the crease along my neck.
i chew my life's white belly.
feel fins chime in my teeth.

re-worlding

i sowed a new planet
in the dust of our lake.
body of water.
were you also dried 
by the sun's new dress?
it looks cheap on her.
full of all the fishes who tried 
& failed at having legs.
breathing like skyscrapers.
i look down & see a bustle dying out. 
that summer i saved all my shed skin
for a future form.
believed too aredently
in rebirth. made preparations.
backpacks of lotion. oranges in a bowl.
tubs & tubs of water. the new planet
will be inverted. trees grow downward.
rain leaps upward into clouds.
mothers stand at the edge of the yard
& dream of fences. how far
can you throw a rock?
i consider breaking a neighbor's window 
to warn her i'm about to 
trade the moon for a platter
of steamed shellfish. 
palm of melted butter. i give you
a knife & explain where 
to dig the well. through the basement 
underneath the washing machine
that hasn't spit in weeks.
everything is breaking
& needs to be replaced. 
it is very human of me 
to hold hands with trees 
& conspire against their dirt.
i whisper, "we could go 
anywhere." the tree sighs
& waits for me to leave
so she can braid her hair. 

porch pirate

to unwrap the old wishing well.
one day a box of cue tips, another
myriads of chocolate oranges.
ripples across my old lover's face. 
how she lived on coins alone.
i keep inventory & make unkeepable promises
of repayment. there's always
the next life where i have decided
i will be a land lord (an amicable one).
seasons sift beneath me
like projections. always 
giving summer away. i used to fill
shopping carts with only bread
just to leave them. i called them
"ration ships." my daughter 
eats like a song bird a stolen granola bar.
there are people out there who order
in bulk. masses & masses of food. 
i wonder what it's like to move forward
with such certianty. i see a door,
any door, & i think "please stay closed."
children run up & down the sidewalk
collecting leaves. like them
i am in search for the most gorgeous one.
take a desire inventory:
a microwave large enough
to fit a skull, a doll house 
my daughter can fit inside, & maybe 
another shipment of gummy chicken feet.
i'm always strolling like the air
is mine. keep a pocket knife 
for a wife. a box must be 
discarded immediately. molted,
is how i think of them. 
opening each in the backseat 
while i park at the drug store.
packing peanuts swarm. bubble wrap.
righteous fury at nonesense
delivered from angels. i steal
a shopping cart & park it underneath 
the bridge for someone else to find.
drive home as if i am not
a disease. passing houses 
with their porch lights on.
i am only that colleague of shadows.

rain diet

it's the waiting.
the days of empty-eggs.
porches that widen
into altars.
stomach, like a cave,
growing its own teeth
in anticipation.
i find my deepest pleasures
& torments
when i let someone else control
my breathing. i wear
a diving suit. enter
the blood stream of a god.
feel my lover pinch
the oxeygen line shut.
last time i really feasted 
it was summer. all the boys 
were made of bubble gum.
i bore holes in every spoon
with my hunger. 
through those openings flew
blueberries & grains of rice.
i forgot how to eat anything else
so long ago that
i don't know how 
to open my mouth for that kind
of eating. instead, i ask 
for gray's flock. a bucket cradled 
like a leg of lamb. water will come.
this i know from repetition.
how a body can become 
withered enough to regret waiting
then, the release. breathing so deep
the moons hear it. yes, yes 
please more. my own little lake
arriving to my heart. painted turtles 
& drowned famine. my reflection
in a pool. drenched & ready
to for another vigil. 

birth time

fingernails align & a planet
becomes a ring box. i ask 
for ciphers & symbols. throw a fishing net
out past the last star we've named.
seasons hang like canopies.
as we all were
i was born in the year of a great snow
& my bones took their headlights
from drifts. my answers often live
before their questions
in caves & gorges. to open each july
like a parade of canned peaches.
i read my palms & find signs 
of fracture. trapeze nightmares.
sifting in each migraine 
as if it were a fossil river.
there must be a reason why
i crave thunder. there must be 
roots of my need for binding 
every animal who looks my way.
there is a suitecase filled with gems
& it opens over & over.
people scramble like ants 
to take what they can. this is how
my body opens for me. what can i scoop
from a stream of moon light? 
when venus speaks, does she 
hold my name like a pearl 
or a bucket of snakes? let's not
trust our memory too much though.
our tree lost all her limbs
in the front yard the day 
i was born. the pile remains there 
in me: a sanctuary where 
nothing has to be clear away.

thumb in the pie

i'm in favor of regression.
waking up in an ocean womb
& speaking raisins back to vine.
there are rewards to be had
or at least so i'm told.
i carry a golden coin under my tongue.
will you be my pay phone?
fingers in the boyhood 
where only knees should go.
i tunnel into my wanting
& find only deeper cravings.
ovens piled high with hair.
my father's walkman 
& headphones to listen again
to the octopus's garden.
down there she's knitting us
life vests. it is too late 
for most measures against destruction.
instead, i pray to orepheus
for new methods. what does it mean
to sift for beginnings. asking
sweetness where the bees 
are sleeping. a tunnel to 
the other side of town 
where no sound can reach 
& i am nothing but a boy
in a corner dreaming his own 
harvest. this life 
did not come to me. this life
opened around in petals 
& foil & deer skulls. 
where is my gift carried 
by late-season geese?
i find bows around knives
& crosswords with only one word
repeated over & over 
in new ladders & lattices.
the plum is ripe as
it ever will be. 

several hundred kinds of salt

i tasted wrist bends 
& the ocean's old tongue.
pickling the moon,
we waited with silver lids
like halos. all i want is
to float on my back
in a vessel of your making.
blue salt & pink salt 
& ridding the bad luck
over your shoulder. coarse
& fine. uses for salt bolders.
the salt lamp in your bed room
that could not even begin
to heal the portal
opening in our faces.
how i still want to call you
because there are disasters
only you can give me.
break door knobs. cut 
a city's cord. i eat a pickle
outside a gas station. brush feathers
from my shoulders. carve gears 
into the walls of my cantaloupe.
some salt is for blessing circles 
& some is sweet like ice.
trying to save our pillows.
the jar of tomatoes severed 
into tight grins. do you know
how to remember a fish?
eyes fill the sink where
i try to wash my face. 
you lick your thumb. i smooth
a crinkled document. a market blooms
with salt. there is a salt 
to cure everything. tall glass
of salt. fish who refuse
anything else. nothing like me.
i live brackish at best. 
inhale flouride & fingers.
gasp. kiss seedlings goodbye.
call you & hang up. peel open
your wallet like a corpse flower.
credit cards warped
from salting. lamp glow.
lowering myself 
into a lavender bath. 
salt grit on my back.
waiting for the dissolve
then just water.
i'm waiting to be captured. 

self-portrait as a nun

you treat each window
like a postage stamp. beneath your feet
the world is glass. in the morning 
even the church smells red.
when you question god it is always
an address. is there someone there?
in the mirror you are often a crow.
perch. preen the old feathers.
mind flickering with trinkets passed
on sidewalks: a penny an earring.
every sink in the sacristy leads
to soil below. sometimes you wash
your own hands there--dream of
returning to dirt. the hail mary
is so firm it makes a body in you.
a woman in blue carrying a bundle of sticks
& pretending it is a child. a part of you
will always trust holy water
no matter how many bugs you've fished
from the fountain. hair is a dormant castle.
disappeared underneat a veil or
threat of perminance. 
you used to plan weddings
but now you are safe inside a promise.
sometimes god is a tree 
on the sidewalk reaching for
his own inch of sun. as a girl,
this was everything you feared.
you pictured the habit & the robes.
you pictured yourself folded
& thumbing a rosary like 
another woman's hand. now, you are
all of this & more. prayer escapes you
like breath. your doubts are 
living things. you light candles 
in the church. sleep beneath the tree.

mashed potato igloo

i crawled into the snow's
lost weather. sold my neck
for a chance at roots. took our trowels
out to the middle of the guest room
where my grandmother's ghost
refuses to sleep. in the future
there will be a spoon large enough
for all my ancestors 
to curl up on. one bite away
from never having to talk about it again.
if only union was this instant.
clockwise as god intended. i remember
arriving with an empty bag
of confetti--wishing a gift 
would grow inside. i had three weddings
only in the past year. wearing white,
i held the butter tray. how this knife
can mean nothing at all. profiles 
of gods. i needed even the moon
pureed. gravy doesn't come until
it's just me alone with my egg timer.
spinning the wait. owl-headed,
i'm looking out for the valley of forks.
how could i be so old? the table
lengthens each year until it presses
against opposite walls. soon the house
wil pop open. i won't / will be there
when it does. as for refuge,
there is always to tunnel within.
to be carried on a fine china plate
towards your father's stomach. 
it's harder & harder to be full.
we fold our hands. my brother 
says grace.  

abandoned fairytale 

i swallowed my name like a key.
every forest buckled & match stick.
feeling for the furrow between
what happened & how repetition 
will unravel our journey across
the sea. you walked on water or 
i tied myself to the ship's bow.
mermaid feasted on our ankles.
she used to tell me a story 
in bones--tracing each moment 
across my skin. the night is made
of everything we decided not to remember.
ghosts with their chariots of after.
i buried each prince 
like a tulip bulb. witches half 
emptied with their jaws left
to make up for the wanning moon.
there is a barter to be made
with the dragon. his treasure,
a mountain of grandmother jewels.
the faces of the trees urge us
"go back to your spine." 
we can't decipher what that means.
animals talking to each other.
passing guidances to run for higher land.
i don't believe in parables
at least not when there is 
so much to be unlearned.
a talking bowl pleads for rain.
the clouds crawl away on their bellies.
fairies leaving their wings 
on the arms of trees like cicada shells.
we had little chance with magick.
i tried my face for a talking 
basket of plums. the last witch
who could reverse this
is now a cup of ash. i carry the basket
down a long dirt road 
through the wood.