oil changing 

i feed you a yellow cherry tomato
as you stand in front of your car's open skull.
wires & metal & spare jaws.
tiny sun between my fingers. 
outside, the heat of smoldering august
urges us to quicken. there is not much left
of the summer. then again, there is always
not much left of a summer.
i spend the afternoon watching you
slide under your black camaro, sliver tool
in your hand. the radio in the corner
talks like teenagers. i read a poetry book
about the end of the world 
& when i get to the end i start over.
you drain the oil into pans. little lakes
of future fire. your hair curly & beautiful.
grease on your fingers. we fight with a bolt.
rusted from miles of clenching.
i crawl underneath too. the car's belly.
almost expect to see a night sky. 
cosmos. the way that metal has watched
all our drives like one long asphalt ribbon.
i tell the bolt, "i understand how it feels
to hold onto the old parts of yourself."
but, then, i resurface & report my failure.
i eat cherry tomatoes, standing vigil as you work.
admire how you keep all your rings on
even as you coax the vehicle apart. 
then, cannot help but feel like the car is an animal.
your hand on the hood. on the walls
of your dad's garage, families of tools.
hammers & funnels & screws. rags black 
with oil. i kiss your warm cheek. 
you say, "i'm almost done." soon we'll ride
through the mountain's shoulder blades.
on the ride i'll tell you 
a story about when i was a girl
& you'll point out the cloud-bearing sky. 
i wipe a smudge of grease from my hand.
inspect the creases of each finger.

hunting knife

the antelope leave their hearts
in their dressers. wear nothing but silk slips.
a tear in the ceiling is getting bigger.
i bought the hunting knife not to feel like a man
but to sever as one. cleaving the night
into scattered stained wood. shipwreck. shrine. 
drapery. a curtain. creature hooves making piano 
of the sky. i carry the knife in my pocket.
cradled. little egg. tongue. haven't you ever
felt your softness turn razor? 
stab a tree & watch it sway before 
spilling on the sidewalk. eventually
the knife holds me. tells me where & when
another creature is exhibiting potential
to be made into daguerreotypes. i keep
a catelog of everywhere i have slept.
under an eyelid. beneath a folding moon.
in the sun's cough. comet laughter.
knife takes me elsewhere to a blood stream.
instead of smooth stones the river bed
is lined with hearts. have you ever been
followed into your own nightmare? my shadow
abandonded me & merged with a tree's.
sirloin in the trees. we weren't hungry like that.
not like that either. something more like
a desire to poke a hole in a great balloon.
never leave me, i tell the knife.
it doesn't acknowledge me. afterall,
the knife only thinks of feathers & wind
&, on occasion, how & if it will every be used
to piece a desctruction back together.
i catch no antelope or deer or even squirrels.
return to the hollow with only a knot of hair
loosed from my own head. the river thrums.
the fish become mammals. the mammals
find knives under their pillows.

violin made of dandelions 

there's only so much time to be golden.
i used to have a stop watch but it broke
& now its committed to telling time.
ran the horses through the water & back
until their hair was ready for bow.
my brother fits inside a music box
& so i pack him up & tell him to hold his breath.
as kids, we opened our mouths to find beaks.
feathers hovering in the air & refusing
to touch ground. i was never made for october.
i was made for a july that stumbles over & over.
the field where we ate our fill of yellow.
song birds going belly-up. a disease spreads
like pollen. string instruments die 
& we bury them with their necks
sticking out of the dirt. like all humans
we will find ways to rebuild. hunting 
blue jays for flecks of sound. harvesting 
dandelions in our pockets & hoping 
one will contain a rolled up string.
at night, the sky is full of spines.
look, don't touch. my eyes as glass 
as footprints. i pick one dandelion for myself.
find a mirror in the forrest & hold the flower
beneath my chin to see the glow.
i am golden for now. gleaming. no one else
has to know. our secret, my dandelion.
i hear the violin playing itself. maybe 
freshly assembled. maybe just a ghost
trudging up an old song. i stick my blossom
in my mouth where no one can take it from me. 

curse

the sink poured honey.
golden & sticky in our drinking glasses.
flies came singing & we all
plugged our ears best we could.
have your ever heard a beetle
do penance? crawling on the ceiling
to get as close to god as possible.
poured salt in rings around the beds.
somehow this was our fault. we had been
so careless in our wishing. could have
just cross-stiched our mouths shut
& let the dreams turn to yogurt.
lit all candles in bouquets of three.
the windows asked for fire. 
one of us was a witch or all of us were.
holy water in tupperware containers.
there had to be a better way. 
putting the pillow over my head
i tried to drownout the sound of pigs.
every closet had one. massive animals
with eyes full of teeth. carried a spoon
in my pocket. lost track of family members
one by one. when your house is extra-inhabited 
you can only look out for yourself.
googled to see if this was generational
or some latent haunting. had it always been
like this & i had just willfully forgotten?
swallowing honey. bathing in honey.
talking to honey. gold pools of future glass.
we could have been monsterous & wild. we could
have sat together & linked arms.
my brother is a chandelier. my father,
a dumbwaiter. only three coins left.
i pay the curse to let me sleep
just a few hours. the curse nods 
& goes to another room to tinker 
with structure. tomorrow, 
when the sun is red again, 
i will ask the curse what it would take
to become him. is a home something shed
or something eaten? sucking on a spoon
of honey. the curse slinks past
my bedroom door on all six legs.
i put a tooth beneath the pillow
just to watch it become a skull. 

immitation crab

dug a fresh hole & called it "ocean."
waited for the water to return. 
have you heard they are growing meat
in buckets? talking to walls of muscle
& saying, "you were born for devouring."
then again, weren't we all? i used to be
a vegetarian by which i mean i wanted to be
dismembered like a head of lettuce.
one leaf of my heart at a time. 
the shoreline is only two street away.
we used to say "landlocked" & we'd mean
something less severe. i update my phone
& wait for it to load whatever future 
i'm going to be taught to need.
use the gps to find the grave. we buried 
the cow's bones after boiling them for broth.
a rib under my pillow i ask, "is this yours
or mine?" femur for steering wheel.
there is, of course, a piece of the animal
even within the replica. you can't teach meat
how to move without a mother. 
i had a bicep once. i had a toy truck
full of glass eyes. a device
for cracking open the arms of crustaceans.
lobsters living forever as knights do.
just armor & a will to keep asking 
"whose tongue am i made for?" 
we could have built anything you know?
instead we made the choir & the knuckle.
tossed skulls into the bay. stumbled headless
in the bright dark evening as 
blue crabs cut our hair in the surface. 

mechanical bees

i didn't notice the change.
that summer was full of wilted mouths 
& flowers forgetting their old languages.
the mailbox became a doll's head.
our fingers parched, we soaked hands
in yogurt. walking out to the old pasture
we saw a cow catch fire. tried, desperately
to dose the animal in water. it was too late.
already there was crystal underneath.
they tell us there are solutions
in the works. we recieve a flyer on how
to exhale less. how to plant mangroves 
in our toilets. we do what we can.
re-use the plastic bags to carry
thimbles down from the attic when it's dusk
& time to take precautions.
it was you, my love, who noticed the bees.
your mother was a bee keeper.
often you would invite the insects
to stand on the length of your finger 
& one day they stopped accepting 
your gesture. wild & terrified you ran 
into the mouth of the world. you ask the bees
where they were keeping their ghosts.
the machines worked brainless.
drone technology touching the faces
of plum tree blossoms. i told you not to
but you killed one just to see 
the wires. held it up to me & said
"this is not a bee." what more
could i have done? i told you this is
what we have to do. this is what is left.
you shook your head. wept before 
scattering the machine bee debris
in the yard. truth be told i pretend
i never saw it. i pretend the bees are alive.
from a distance they hum all the same.
rise from white flower to bud.
legs kissed with yellow pollen.

jigsawing

in the photo album i was 
the scissor-insect & the thumb press.
looking for a gerry-mander 
in our faces i cut alley ways
& ice rinks & inlets. where does
the puzzle begin & who does it
begin for? if we are going to remember
we need as much tangible as possible.
pins in the pizza box & maybe 
someone to cut out the eyes.
a piece of clear plastic is all
that separates me from eternity.
a scrap book vs. a scrape book.
there's a nice one of my brothers & i.
none of us are smiling. one of us
is holding a cicada shell. i'm not sure
who is who. i could be nothing
but the cord. trying to find
the dead christmas light. my shoulders
are the missing part. i sometimes
regret the separations. bone 
from skin from teeth. we couldn't
have arrive in one piece. that is how
rich people build homes not how
we live. box of mac & cheese full of snails.
a terrarium for vodka. nothing is 
as easy as it sounds. or there's 
more staring than neccesary. 
i never set out 
to be useful until i would told
i should be working on reassembling.
here is where there used to be 
a sunflower. here is what 
the sunflower lies & tells
other people. we all have a secret.
that jigsaw hole waiting for the piece.
you could of course make another one
but you would walk around with that space
knowing it was not true. waiting 
by the front door, to encounter
the familiar corner of face.
do you still even know
what it looked it?

body safe wax

i held the wick between my teeth 
even as you pulled. there was a flame
or i was the flame or the room 
was a flame. half of a safe word. 
i wanted to be a sensation 
& not a pair of lungs. wanted to 
stand vigil over a dining room table.
bless the chicken. kneeling.
an urn. holding the candle or me.
the lighter he kept in his pocket.
another frame in the basement like
a merged pair of eyes. who could know
it would be this static? this urgent 
to bring heat to flesh. over the fire
or holding the fire. a hoard 
of boys all waiting to be good.
do you know what it means to recieve?
i open my palms. ask to hold
the baby. the baby is nothing
but rope. the baby is a bedroom.
who knew it would be this easy 
to ask for salvation? no no not like that.
i mean a rope bridge & a kerosene lamp.
no more tongues. just candles flickering
at every spoken word. i could give you
a new contintent. spill an atoll 
on the ocean of your back. call me
blue as a before the bruising.
i go as far back as the word "yes." 

crater

we stood on the edge 
like green plastic army men.
depth still smoldering from impact.
the comet fell late afternoon 
as we had been standing on the porch
eating hot dogs 
& talking about sea level rise.
none of us had seen the rock
getting closer. we were chewing 
& the sound of sun screen laughed 
at all notions of death.
it dismiated the herb plants.
singed the old evergreen tree.
stared at us like a grandmother.
pulsed loud & precisely. waited for us
as we waited for it. yards away
other families were breathing AC
& sitting in living rooms.
they might have felt a slight shake 
of the earth. that is the thing
about a meteor, they are mission bend.
familiar. but, just as soon as it was there
the rock was gone. we blinked. 
rubbed our eyes. nothing but
the crater. one by one slipping inside.
walls still warm from collision.
burned root & grit & soil.
we laid in the crater. took selfies
in its mouth. smudged our fingers
from climbing its sides.
"i am the crater," my youngest brother said
as he laid on his back 
& looked at an oranging sun.
we could not leave the crater. one by one
brining beds & pots of noodles. 
the crater was lonely for so long.
singing to the depths we feel it widen.
echo with space & galaxy.
i pet the ground i lay on.
i ask, "where did you come from?"
the crater does not respond.
simply gets a little deeper 
just for me. soon i will graze
the fartherst shoulder of nebula.
will turn stone & fly fast & wreckless
through dark vibrating space
just to return & deliver a crater.

sleep eating

my body is a handful of grain.
took the moon down like a balloon.
arrow through the heart. feed myself 
meal worm in the dark until they turned
to red sugar. how could you not
want to fill your bones? i am my mother's
only remaining jar of blackberry jam. 
winter is coming soon & we will be
mummified by our doors. who knows 
what kind of hunger is waiting.
i used to only use spoons to scrape
at the far all in my bedroom but now
i take the shovel. swallow hunks
of drywall. coughing ice cream. 
i am becoming a wall or a window. 
who knows what the structure has in store.
you watch me making my way through
a dark kitchen. spiders for hands.
i knit a web over the fridge.
caress forks like stray cats. then, 
curl up, like a chestnut waiting
for a foot. spitting the pit out
in my hand. fearless peach fur.
the knife drawer turning into 
a veranda. who knew there was
so much. in the city of scarcity
everyone believes it's already over.
but here the kitchen wearing 
a favorite shadow. you do not stop me.
you simply watch.