tree cutting addiction 

i used to practice bird calls 
in the closet. played a recording
of wrens & blue jays. my phantom beak
a deck of cards. how can i describe
the relief of falling. if you have seen
a tree fall you have seen 
stars spat like cherry pits.
i collect my requests of god. rot from
inside out. leaves piled up to my neck.
i pleaded with an angel to let
our one tree live. there is a tree
in the city i promised to visit again.
something tells me she is leveled
& that only her roots still speak.
i watched a house being demolished 
& i thought, "the only thing that returns
is wreckage." sparrows sew each hole
in our quilted afternoon. planting 
light bulbs so that they might yield
future street lamps. i walked 
arm in arm with a great oak 
just to take him to be made into 
the stilts of a beach house. 
gazed off at the sea. watched horses
trek across the water's surface.
i do it without even thinking.
the chainsaw & the need for lumber.
if the tree must be dismembered 
i always want to be 
the one do to it. this is selfish 
i know. i hoard the wood. stacks
of necks. collared shirts worn
to see god. an axe clutched 
in one hand. green as a new promise.
trees walking with veils on.
roaming in search of every leaf lost.
gathered in their arms. i lead them
to their bodies. the ash or 
the beams. i say, "i am sorry,
i can't help it."

animal zoo field trip

i gathered our cages 
like reptile hearts. red pandas
eating their faces in their
slivers of dark. i hold hands
with a heron. stare out through
his eyes as he counts human fingers.
i want to feed the giraffe 
by which i mean it is time 
for me to break a mirror. tongues
of gods. distances measured 
between fence & foreground.
fevers in the lions den. single file 
species. here is a fact about hippos:
they all want to play string instruments.
once i knew the limits of my body 
i surrounded myself with that craving.
frogs with the eyes of stolen planets.
a comet cranes her neck to see
the systems we built to know each other.
shaking hands with a king cobra.
he whispers, "you know there is
an exit sign above?" me, nodding.
we must help each other but "help"
becomes a parachute off a volcano.
rocks are just latent rushing.
piles of legs & feet. a femur
crowns the old day. school buses 
bore holes in the illusion with 
their headlights. i could have been
an otter. could have turned over
every keeping. instead i build 
a field trip deeper into my glass.
press a hand to the outlines
of chimpanzees. an orangotan
cradles me. i grow orange fur
& hunger for a ripe fruit yet to exist.
the zoo widens until there are cages
within cages within cages. 
the snakes visit the stick bugs 
& the penguins observe the bears.
what does it mean to go beyond gazing.
i memorized the way you put on your face
one eye at a time. then, you were gone.

toxic sunset

i was choking on the yes i promise.
forever is a distance measured
in falterings. birds incinerating 
from that orange. smoke from 
a car wreck. holding your hand too long,
i told you the wedding was two-day delivery.
i knew you wanted it sooner.
wrapping the perfect moment in celophane.
the sunset dissolves flowers 
& leaves spider legs. slow dancing melts 
into still lives. i'm taking 
a perfect selfie for reminding myself
i love you. burning rubber smell.
passing a box of chocolates & refusing
to take the last one. it lives forever
as a planet of golden waiting.
i thought the sunset built herself
from sand but instead i find she is 
not edible. just like the moon,
she wants nothing to do with more 
honey & rose petal bathing. instead,
she hopes for dripping. wall paper peeling.
joyful army men trekking the side
of an old promise so broken it creaks
with each step. i used to be 
a camera lens. i window-stood & documented
exactly how to candy our hearts
in dusk. lately though i'm growing
poison apples. slicing them into horizons.
i think i'm falling in love with 
yellow. a blushing purple catches me
off guard & i am weeping. white-haired.
mothering a bruised pear. 
chemical burns. dragoned skin 
& soon our nylon morning. i brought 
a special barrier just to place
between myself your curiosities.
it's best to know as little as possible.
let the sunset take over. there is
a moment we could pretend is 
large enough to crush us like beetles. 

folding my life into a triangle 

these days the algorithm is knotting my socks
& i don't have a coffin to fit my hands.
to feel useful, sometimes i'll wash the kitchen floor.
get on my hands & knees & become 
aquainted with all our year's dirt.
my father has the hands of a lawn mower.
i have the hands of a trapezee artist
who has long since given up the craft.
creating artifial orders gets me through winter.
lining boots up against the wall
& waiting for them to start marching.
i purchase a piece of cloud & try
to write an old crushes name on it.
the past is made of bubbles or maybe
barbed wire. something to be crossed.
a watch tower looms & i wish it were
giraffe herds. they could do the looking down.
there's holes in my life where
water leaks out in a good storm
but can do nothing about having tried
to bird myself from a roof. when i was 
trying to grapefruit, i would eat
only monopoly money & seltzer.
one crease for girlhood & one for
trying to have a body & another 
for geometry which always did fail 
to impress me. that is except for spheres.
i could exist on thought so spheres alone.
your roundness is why i fell in love with you.
a jungle of cones. holding my life
like a love letter, i deliver it 
to the flock of nonesense birds
who are just waiting for trash day.
i inform them it isn't till tomorrow.
they scoff & take my folded little existence.
deliever it elsewhere. to the sun maybe
but probably just to a tree's hollow
where the birds will read it 
for a laugh. fold it again until
it is another dry orange leaf.

i meet the devil often

he takes me to a red room
at the other end of an axe.
outside i can hear my father measuring
the perimeter of our distance.
in the room a phone rings
& no one is allowed to answer
only i break the rules & i do.
on the other side is a green world
where all your lovers want you 
at once. i am a piece of taffy
laid long. stil hot from forging.
a dog without eyes stares at me
from a reflection in the french doors.
when i say "devil" i don't mean 
underworld so much as i want to suggest
unbuckling. when i don't wear seatbelt 
i feel myself lifting from the vehicle
& out the moon roof's slight smile.
walking towards a ledge like a video game map.
nothing more to step off of. the devil
plays violin yes this much is true.
plucked the strings from a horse
all on his own. he'll ask me 
which one of us should start listing
forbidden actions first. i begin saying,
"sleeping without having bartered"
& "eating breakfast before
the birds clutter the telephone wire."
i am a scheme of beautiful damnations.
in hell, flowers grow like 
you couldn't imagine. devil & i 
trading bow-ties & scars. the room
always ends abrutly. a zoo spills
out of fireplace or dragons nest
in the television. dog again. reflection.
the red room in his mouth. i tell him 
i am packing my bags as we speak.

tunnel makers

the tunnel makers are no longer certain.
open the glass boxes where they keep
their tongues. turn headlights on 
& get ready to become briefly
a part of the dirt. each night they work
they hope to cross pathes with another.
tangles & tangles of throat-building.
sometimes when i speak i feel
a tunnel maker. he hums a sideways hymn.
looks desperately in my dirt 
for an ancient coin or a lover.
there are no plans for tunnels. 
always dangerous. there was the one
i used to drive through to kiss you
on the other side. snow fell like cream.
i should have been more patient.
instead i opened holes in the yard.
dug through white through grass
& into the yellowed bone of it all.
the thing about a tunnel maker is
he knows nothing of an other side.
believes only in the beginning.
i am then often the opposite 
of a tunnel maker. i inspect endings 
like necklaces. here is the clasp
that was supposed to hold you
around my neck. birds fly
into tunnels & stay so long
they turn into moles. gently
tunnel makers palm feed them.
i too want to be taken into 
their wild darkness. follow close behind
as they dig. a tunnel both is 
& isn't a grave. a final resting place.
dominion of worms. lengthing 
like the universe's silver esaphogus.
nothing comes. nothing goes.
just goes deeper. i don't know
if i want to be a tunnel maker but i crave
the thrust of their lives.
they are everything i fear. 
orbit traded for abyss. 

in the tomato forest

we once threw red like mornings.
your body an acidic mouthful.
do you remember when you craved salt
& so i opened a packet on your tongue?
those were enough nights
to salvage me. love is waterwheel.
the river pushes forward & forgets
her face. in the forest there are
no functioning mirrors. you need
to touch your face to remember it's there.
my cellphone rings with the past.
i pick up to listen to the sound
of baked tomatos. breadcrumbs furrowed
& sweet. my face splits open.
you tell me you are going to be
home late again. i quarter the tomatoes.
i halve the tomatos. the vines wrap
around each tree. everyone's thighs
are bruised from work. 
you never saw how high the trees 
could get. all full of their hunger.
i plant more & more each day in tight rows.
mandalas of tomato heavens.
the red i loved you with & the red
i have now are two different reds.
now, deeper, my tomatoes 
are heirloom. pleated & ancient.
puckered as if to ask for roots.
what i hope for is that one day
you return & knock on the door.
pretend i am a perfect stranger 
& say, "i found this for you
while wandering in the wood."
you will be holding a tomato.
i will take you in.

butterfly

it matters where you keep the pin.
i became the left wig & you, right.
what can be said of the shadow box's
saddness. i remember when the trees
were each a wedding. how could i have been
so star-full & greedy. loving you was
archeological. i had a shovel instead
of a tongue. becoming the shared 
specimen. iridescent & not quit gone.
ghosts of fellow shoulder blades 
coming to greet us in the afterworld.
after you stole nectar. after i 
took the pin in my hand & called you
selfish. arm in arm with angels.
you were never an attentive wing.
always taking the wind's word for it.
caution is the art of mistrust. 
swells until there is no sky left.
we could have been devoured but instead
bed ridden, we don't share 
a single story. i say to myself
when i am away--i'll write us 
a graveyard fit for this kind of 
uncoupling. you speak in only flutter.
our paper is showing. window opens itself.
luckily there is a sheet of glass
to keep us viewable. do you remember
picking flowers on the solstice?
how they dried & turned dust?
this is us. each wing a separate tunnel
through which the same sun lives
apologetically. a pair of eyes arrives.
planetary. looming. when i sleep
i do so in order to forget the pin.

pollen

every animal has its own way 
of writing its name. humans build
towers to poke holes in the sky.
horses run the length of a field--
leaving hoof-prints in fresh mud.
bees scoop up pollen--taking yellow
into their small hands & searching
for flowers that remind them 
most of their mothers. bowing to a breeze.
pollen coated the outside of my car
on the last days i saw you. you drew 
a heart in the dust. we blinked 
future fruit from our eyes. 
drank sodas in the front seat
with the windows shut. you talked
like only deer do. ready to run
deep into wooded curtains. your eyes
like signatures. ink whirling 
all the way to bone. i used to practice
writing my name on napkins & notebook paper.
that was before i discovered my mouth.
planting my name on your neck.
you said you were growing
a family of potted plants. i imagined
being the father of plum trees
with you. there was enough sugar
to keep our wants caramel & dripping.
dew spitting letters onto my canvas shoes.
everything was damp. i never used 
the extra closet space. simply filled it
with empty boxes. names upon names.
the backyard where you asked 
if i had a space ship anywhere.
sighed & said, "not yet."
the bees hovered, watching. 
re-collecting their pollen. asking
if you were their mother. inside
before you left, you drew a portrait of me
using only forks. i asked, "am i smiling?"
you said, "only if you want be."
i find your name still in crossword puzzles 
& written in pollen on my desk.
a single bee the keeper of my regrets.
is a name a capsule or a lectern?
you road a sun beam back 
to before i knew you.

mutual

requited palm in the bee hive.
my hands evolved to honey. sticky
between fingers. golden words
spit at your teeth like brick walls.
all i had in the parallel you.
i lift my arm. you lift yours.
oceans reduced to blankets & sheets.
sleeping monsters clasping hands.
your breath a shared engine. we could
have been one palace. i go in with
a diamond shovel. unearth the quartz
& dinosaur teeth. you sigh.
planets crack open to reveal 
their dragons. this is all i could
ever want. to watch you & to watch me.
the symmetry of birch trees 
& their water reflections. no more rooves,
rain comes down on us in bed. 
thunder tossing candles from shelves.
nothing will ever burn again after this.
what if i broke the rice paper curtain 
& kissed your back? planted tulip bulbs
on your neck? i want to hear you ask
for more than the moon could carry.
i will crawl on all fours for years
because of you. we laugh like only 
copper-rich fountains can. i'm laying tile
on every wall i find. these are our shoulders.
this is both our bed.