tethered

when the atoms speak to each other
they talk of distances. holding hands
they whisper a story about stolen acorns 
& the recluse sugar we wanted to eat.
i am touched by a long stick from the yard.
bamboo grows in my living room like television.
once an ad told me "i guarantee" & i thought
"i have never been so certain."
seeing the atom like a ripe cherry
i tried to bite down hard. my tongue
is an ugly worm of need. my father's atoms
are drunk & floating in amber. looking up
at an old over-used sky. i take mine
down to the laundry mat to clear them up.
fresh smell of "alright alright." watching
the little spheres tumble in a machine.
i take my composition to the playground later
to research childhood. did i have one?
is it too late? sipping a pine tree.
sticky cones for dolls. the atoms are saying 
"nevermind" & they are letting go. 
i am troubled deeply by this. i take everything 
as an omen because it is. a dead bird is always
a sign of a car crash or a broken heart.
you were the one who told me that sometimes
atoms link up together. hold tight. 
talk & talk for hours. for every scientist 
there is a lover painted on a shower curtain.
i tell my atoms to kiss again. 
spend all night at the cutting board
trying to slice on in half. i don't want
destruction i just want to see inside.
but maybe inspection is a form of desctruction.
my atoms are all pink. well, not all.
one is lavender & one is bruise-blue.
here let me show you them. no microscope needed.
plug your ears & your eyes. 
yes, there they are.

several ways to tie a tye 

go for the throat. a snake
in the bathtub. we held our manhood
like a wrist. when was the last time
you were willingly tied to the tree?
in the yard, everyone is a post.
i look at myself in the mirror 
& slip fabric beneath collar. consider
making a simple knot with the paisley tie.
i learned to be a man incompletely
through slideshows in the shower
& neighborhood boys on bikes.
i played baseball with leaves.
tying the tyes together to make a chain.
rapunzel in the attic writing
a horror novel about girls who want 
to be handsome. guarding the vein.
dinner with loved ones in which 
the tie is vestigial. pink halos
around my neck. around my wrist.
this is where i was tethered. this is
where my body slipped free gasping.
hardwired to forget, i draw diagrams.
i write step by step instructions.
when my father gets ready he becomes
a statue at the bathroom mirror.
he does not smile. the tie makes herself.
his hands know routine. he becomes 
beautiful. combs his hair. brushes his
parchment teeth. i take a dime's worth
of lotion & rub it in between my fingers
before i go searching again. 
i don't own any tyes. 

candied scorpian 

i wanted to run the knife
through sugar. with dried figs in my pockets,
i coaxed spiders from their bitterness.
taught the fox to waltz. in the graveyard,
using a tomb stone as a coffee table
we read the news & decided the world 
wasn't the world anymore. watched as
an airplane crashed into a jello mold.
witnessed the death of the final birds.
each turned into feathered tortes.
what does it mean to truly swallow?
in my chest i felt the insects 
as they rebeled against destiny.
some bugs had rosary beads. some were
rosary beads. god tastes like smoke 
& oranges. a pile of rind. candied scorpians
fresh from between the floor boards.
removing the stinger with two fingers.
a jar of venom. a jar of poison. 
the scorpians, eaten whole, awake
inside my ankles. whispering their sugars.
trying to gasp. i want to consume 
everything that could kill me. press car rides
between my ribs. swim with rocks.
ask the bear for a spare coin. 
the bus route is a spaghetti zoo. no telling
what street will be the next ice berg.
one more bite & then we can head out.
teeth to the moon. cutting out lips
on the rims of soda cans. the dream
is carbonated. i am never full. 

aphid

do you recall your green smallness?
how we ambled across leaf
finding manna on every furrow?
above, the birds gave each other wedding rings.
the lady bugs set up a phonograph
& danced like supper plates. all we could do
was think of teeth. our mandibles knitting
the body behind us. sweet nectar.
stories of the first mother
who fell down & shattered to make us.
tell me friend, how miniature would you be
if you could? i think i would want
to be so tiny not even the wind
could see me. i would want to walk
in circles around tongues unfelt 
& undiscovered. they say life comes
in circles but mine has always arrived
spherical. hula hoops roll 
up & down a driveway. animals 
with all kinds of machines. trees 
holding binoculars. two boys kissing
between the tall grass. summer was
nothing but a picture show. sitting down,
eating, we could feel the sweat 
of all the tomorrows. sun dipped in milk.
you are a good friend. you should
join me & traveling to another leaf.
my favorite is basil. reminds me 
of children. of being new & wild.
i am old now & soon to be part of the grass.
tell me though, tell me, just how minute 
you would live? i want to fit you
in my heart. carry you to every taste.
deliver you were everything is verdant
& everything is us.   

the taxidermists's lover

he talks animal all into the night
while i barefoot myself into my books.
take handfuls of ground beef 
& lay them to rest in the cast iron pan.
heat teaches away pink and red. 
he tells me i'm prone to over cooking things.
like him, i want to be sure what we swallow
remains still. his hands like dead doves. his throat,
the warden of an old piano. outside 
i stare into the woods looking for a ghost.
when i was a boy i used to make burials 
for bird skeletons i'd find up on the hill
by the old decaying housing. nothing but
their bricks. i would knit flowers
into their feathers & say an our father.
the church bells would come over me
like a flock. then, one day, i lifted a bird
i thought was dead & he came back
to life. fluttered & called & disappeared
into the trees above the railroad.
i prefer the full creatures. stay away from him
when he works on just a face. a row 
of elk & deer staring foreward like a jury.
their bodies still running away.
should it trouble me 
he is just as careful with the dead
as he is the living? climbs into me.
traces a finger from my chin 
to the center of my chest. kisses my neck.
we have so many last suppers with just our skin.
a drawer of glass eyes. real eyes
becoming no wheres in their dirt.
this week he mounts a barn owl & i have
visions of waking up to find the bird
alive again & perched on the bedpost.
my lover still asleep. me awake.
me awake opening the window 
& telling the bird to go. 

fishing liscense

he showed me how to cast out.
where the weights go. fish eyes beneath
lake surface. his bare feet. july,
a pinwheel of humid & longing.
all afternoon i watched his biceps.
sturdy muscles moving like covenant. 
reel the line in again.
holding his breath, finger on the line
with a gentleness i wish he would give
to my throat. a father is a body 
who searches elsewhere while you search
for him. hunting in the woods for elk.
pointing a bow & arrow at a deer's stare.
sifting in the lake 
for trout. trout's blushing sides
& speckled heart. then, me 
sitting on the blue cooler 
& trying to identify birds as they darted
from branch to branch above.
cardinal. cat bird. crow. a feather
touching the lake's surface. 
bag of potato rolls for bait.
him, waving to me. branishing a hook
& asking me to add a new lure.
to be drawn from the darkness
by a mistake. his callous hands around
fishing rod's meager handle.
why could he never claim me
like this? like urgent & "get the bucket"
& salvation & the hook through skin.
birds flushing in our commotion.
fish in the cooler shuttering
for the cool wet of his life.
a son, just like me: wet & wayward
beyond the reeds. 

one room school house

all of our pencils were gods. a slate
to write our father's names. in the yard
everyone was a tulip until they weren't.
burrying dolls up to their necks.
call me a garden 
& i'll scream. all our shoe laces
untied & shedding skin. the teacher,
long gone, was not worth our attention.
she was the shape of a pound cake
& had wooden tops for eyes. horses are
programming computers in their fields.
soon we will have a telephone line
to ask jesus what to do with our names.
i kiss a girl on the pigtail & she
wags her finger at me saying 
"it's not april yet." how rude of me.
i used to want to learn everything. 
press my ear to the black board
& hear the rustling of pages.
now i just crave mirage. hallucination 
in the heat off the road. some classmates
hitchhike home. i'm not so bold. 
i got out to the darkness & ask
for comradery. un-lesson from the day.
remove gloves & petticoat. 
no more vocabulary. no more long division.
only the heart's mitosis. slipping & splitting new.
i built the school in my own beneath.
lifted a single floor board. then went &
took my child out from between ribs
where he perched. 
the boy had been counting 
all the figs on earth.
fed him midnight oatmeal & told him
to never be good. he asked
"are you the teacher?" & i said 
"yes but don't tell anyone." 
the new school day tomorrow will 
test the strength of the parameter. 
fences are meant for disregarding.
a dog in the lesson jumping 
clean over the sun & never
coming back down. 

medicine cabinet vacation

there was an ice rink on my face
where i stored all my solutions.
mirror, a sister prayer book, taught me
how to be asymetrical. a little more
to the right. tilting the room 
so all the water rolls down. 
i always check inside. use the box cutter.
use my natural sense of poor direction.
deploy a lexicon of verbs that all mean
"to decay." to spoil. to fester. to 
wither. whether or not you agree
there is going to be a cure, someone 
will drink a cup of purple 
with their eyes closed & think
"finally." a bandaide with 
no wound beneath it. the texture 
of burned skin. teaching the shower
how to make veils. needle pricking
the thumb. i could have been 
a scientist. i could have taken 
one train to the other side of the glass
& sat there for weeks feeling employable.
crossed my legs & un-crossed them.
have you ever asked the moon 
for advice? i do that to every
medicine cabinet i meet. i say
"hello there, how should 
live a less fractured life?"
& they always say, "why would
you want to do that?" it's a lesson
in folding the paper before
you tear it. i search for phone books
just to cross out my name.
no. that's not me. there's no such thing
as another. sleeping. i am
sleeping on a shelf. beautiful & blurred.
a bird in my hand. it is not 
morning or night. it is vacation 
& i am waiting for my body
to come back to me. 

ice fishing in july

we cut a hole in the sun with a can opener.
saw hot-glow fish thrash like irises.
our skin peeled off to the bone & we were 
skeleton-shadows on the dry grass.
hunger is the hand of worry. how how how.
summer, unpocketable no matter how hard
we try to fold & fit. wanting to carry days
like saltines. a nail in the wall to hold a cross. 
basement safe from ocean but not safe
from fatherhood. crouching to lick fingers.
faucet whispering one one one. how should
we close our entrances? keep a backpack full
of doorknobs. accept defeat & windspeed.
get the fire going. afterall, this is the desert.
rubber shoes melted by the UV rays. 
violet teeth to put in the dishwasher.
there was no sign of rain but the clouds
told their own tall tales of mercury
asking god each year to make himself smaller.
our deserves are more celestial & less bodily 
than we think. once, a star perched on my sill
& talked to me as rudely as a car alarm.
i shooed him off & then felt guilty.
it is nearly impossible to say what we 
really mean. i don't really mean ice fishing.
i mean standing on a precarious surface
& not becoming the underneath. i mean fish muscle.
i mean the cold unknown waiting to future us.
tomorrow is a new spell of string. 
the fish are ravenous for air.  

no sign of hometown 

no on the highway necklace 
or even in the green dumpster.
a flashlight to the forward & nothing
but deep & deep. whistling just
to have the distance whistle back.
i left it right here at this exit
& hometown grinned at me & waved.
i just wanted to plant an earbud or
an eraser. i can't remember which.
we could have easily wandered 
to the park's green face. we could have
tied the street signs in knots. 
somewhere a movie is eating through
fence & farmland. reading the backs 
of my hands. veins like telephone lines.
operators in the graves still reaching
to connect a call. hometown was lush
this time of year. hairnets riddled
with fireflies. hometown swallowed deeply
& never slept. was barefoot & saved.
took slow breaths. calmed even the crows.
mountains doing new graces. the hills 
rolling without where. sleeping in the trunk.
a tire rolling in our hearts through
what we used to know as staircase. 
sitting on a stoopless stoop. the house
a new nowhere. hometown dried. 
hometown in the reeds. hometown hidden
like a baby basket or a belt buckle.