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.

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.