emotional support goldfish

made my chest an aquarium. 
added plants & pebbles & a filter that
churned through the night. slept 
standing up so as to not spill.
i wanted a piece of the sun but i settled
for goldfish. at the pet store
they all stared at me & said 
"not me not me." i promised it would
not be too bad to be loved.
promised i would buy more than one
so they wouldn't get lonely. as a girl,
we had many pet fish. betas & neon fish
& a few aquatic frogs. their lives 
were like toothpicks. bones turned to hairs.
ghosts in the unswept corners & under
side tables. aimlessly looking
for a great endless water. i filled the tank.
three shiny goldfish. placed a hand
to my chest to feel their color. 
named them new each day. names are 
a silliness reserved only for humans.
fish call each other by futures.
fed them pellets & flakes. sung to them
like embryos. a child is always
a floating relation. requires water.
my goldfish children told me i was worthy.
i asked, "of what?" & they didn't respond
or maybe they intend to respond later.
i walked out into the street & no one knew
all the water inside me. they just saw
a human, clasping his hands together
as if in prayer. i might be
always praying or i might never be.
the goldfish made no promises. 
died like hardboiled eggs one by one.
i didn't bury them. waited for each
to leave my mouth as a bird. 

over-sized load

i want to travel with a warning label.
trailed by smaller cautions. we drove
all the way to the ocean & fed our door knobs
to the god of the water. i could have been
so much larger. a skyscraper or a red wood.
i could have had fingers the length
of dinner plates. i could have had 
an echo reaching past the moon. laying 
on my back & becoming delivered. no one told me
the arriving would be do hefy. a flag 
protruding from my back. a bag of feathers
on the nightstand. no more assembly for me.
i just want to pick up the whole world
& lift it with me. my volume is less
than you would expect at the first sip.
he was a good enough man. not great 
or wise but he had a way of bending over
like a saint. everything is religious 
until it's too late. the highway crawls.
i wear the sides of the road like gills.
pollution is all the rage. i close my eyes.
bathe in daylight then drench in dark.
where are you taking me, my barbed wire love? 
the final yard is a dream of silence.
no more street lights or timers. 
just the whoosh of a passing cargo. 
how would you like to be taped shut?
who is the currier & who is the carried
in your relationship? i lose a door
on the side of the road. deers knock at it
all year until, in the dead of night,
it opens to somewhere only they can see.
wildlife is seldom as green as this. 
the cabinets buzz with guilt. here i come. 

the discovery of tea

once, we boiled in the tortoise shell. 
shed leaves from our heads & dried them
on pavement. all our scabs had names:
oceania & baltica & rodinia. watched each sprout
red & wonderous before our eyes. walked down
to wash in sunlight. here is how you 
clean a wound. here is how water turns amber
from glass. faceup floating in the bath 
losing pieces of our souls down the drain.
living is the process of coming apart or
more precisely, how you make breadcrumbs 
of a body. i clip my finger nails & line
my little smile-moons up on the windowsill.
drinking deeply from the clay mug & passing it
along the line. everything is warmer now.
face full of faultlines. eating with my fingers
in the kitchen dark. who knew we could 
sing with a thumb over our throats. 
a bird at the back of the cupboard
with all the rest of the dried words.
sudden & promising. deepening dark. 
a whole lake turned maroon with waiting.
sugar cubes balanced on noses. i raise my hand
to find it gone to the water too.

Thunder 

We lay on the storm’s tongue.
A flock of water birds landing 
heart first. 
Burst feather. Bull frog legs. 
Wind overturning weeks worth
Of shoulders. How did I weather 
A July without you? 
You make a pearl of each of my eyes.
I pocket them. Give in 
To the forests unknowns. 
Darkness thickening to sound.
Earlier, we lit candles and asked 
The spirits what they wanted 
To leave us with. Handful of wildflowers.
Mushroom fist. Eagle feather.
It’s hard to hear the thunder 
Over the downpour. Leaves falling 
And becoming boats. I want to be always 
Tangled with you when the wind picks up.
In house or home or tent or tea light.
I kiss your forehead. Brush your cheek.
Blue grey sky. Clouds kneeling 
Holding in their pinkness. 

Bull Frog

Give me your wooden voice.
I want to talk through the night 
Like a sieve. We are not the closed-mouth 
Lily pads or the fishermen’s early legs.
Birds take turns asking “how” 
And “why?” Then, here you are,
Making forests in your throat. 
Twigs snap. My lover tells me 
“At night animals might come by 
Just to sniff the tent.” She is tucked 
In her sleeping bag. Our bodies are 
Warm even in the lake’s cool song.
I picture
Myself in the fur of an old spirit,
Crossing a River toward lantern light.
Your conversations are of the real life.
Of soil. Of green. Smoke. Rain.
You swallow mosquitos. Tell a joke 
To yourself. Rain picks up.
You welcome dampness. Breathe through
Skin. You ask a lover to come closer
Just as I do. 

i tell myself a bedtime story 

you are a girl in the heart of a wooden fire.
the trees are curling like bent nails. 
soon, you will count to one-hundred 
& hear the thunder make chickens of each roof.
with a pillow in the sink to stop the bleeding,
you pluck through the brambles towards
the metal city. as a child, you would
go downstairs when you couldn't sleep.
you would lay on the dirty speckled carpet
& watch a new man make sense of the darkness.
eventually, sleep would wrap you in grease.
waking up in a folded world where the sun
was a possible crease. now, there are 
wolves to take into account. a walmart 
to sing to. parking lot after parking lot.
if you fall in love the love will turn 
sweet as rotten clementines. seeping down
into the crawl-space. the cool cool basement. 
all the flowers, losing their skulls 
in your wake. it is a terrible thing to be
so alive. you talk to the cement & ask
for tips on how to stay still. the rocks,
all once humming birds, say it is just
part of the process. you could kill the stars
in the graveyard or even cut the legs 
off a moon. destruction thrums in you 
like water. cross-legged, you sit in the tall grass
& pluck handfuls of blue from the green. 
smeared on your hands. leaving prints
on every ounce of breath you breathe. 
it is time to tuck knees into chest. it is time
to stop talking to god & put yourself away. 

the last location

was opal & arched its back. 
took a photograph using only my fingers.
we were younger than we should have been
standing on the ledge. memories of trees
flooded our bodies. hush of a strong breeze.
thumbed wine corks in our pockets.
watched as the horizon line turned brittle 
as a bird bone. flightless, the landscape
told a story of thinning. all of us
eating less than we needed. licking our thumbs.
the plate, hovering like a halo. white. round.
shoes falling away one at a time & often
taking the ankles with them. a single ornament
dangling from above. do not touch, 
remembered nothing should be touched from now on.
how did we arrive here? the final of the final.
ends curled up like parchment. there used to be
that field of purple skunk cabbge where
dragonflies rose like angels. dirt carried away
with each exhale. soon the bottom of the barrel.
soon the penultimate glass. a fork in my pocket
for something that won't come. siren stuck
in the air trying to become a fish. 
there had been so much water to float on.
the clouds had drank on their knees.
tell me, if no one is there to remember,
is a location still a location or just a physical?
just a collection? not a collection though
a wordless waiting. un-somewhered by loneliness.
last of our kinds, we filled our pockets with
what was left. kissed beneath us
until all closed into a single stair. 
back up to the attic & no more down. 

telepathy exercises for (un)holy boys

in church, everyone could read each other's thoughts.
little televisions situated in each skull. my brother
playing a scene from a godzilla movie over & over 
& my father watching himself saw wood in the shed.
the priest picturing a field of bread. a cheese knife.
an arm chair. i am good at hearing those signals
but sending my own took practice. staring 
at windows & firing my heart like a water gun. 
i would look up at the ornate high church ceilings 
& picture them full of birds. dove & cardinal & jay.
bird feeders hanging from crosses. who doesn't want
to be suddenly holy? i wanted to talk without my teeth.
tried to send mind messages to another altar boy asking
"do you like me too? do you?" 
we held hands for the our father prayer.
mine, sweaty & too eager. his, cold & granite.
once, during the homily, i tried to tell my brother 
i want to be baptized again. i said in my head
"i don't know why i just want to see it happen."
he didn't respond. that's the thing though 
about telepathy. you can never know if your words land.
i feel like a farmer. planting greetings 
in other people's skulls. what i want is for someone
to answer back. for my skin to echo 
with a word just for me. no one does 
so just keep sending my paper airplane thoughts. 
when i felt brave one day i told the priest, 
"i do not believe in any of this." he kneeled at the altar.
he blessed the bread. he pretended 
not to hear me. i felt scared & so i lied
& took it back. "no, no i was just kidding."
everyone's thoughts swam. ducked under & over each other.
mass ended & we unspooled ourselves from our pews.
in the car ride home i said it again,
"no, no i was just kidding." i couldn't hear
anyone's thoughts anymore. the radio played
another song about god. 

cellular radio

i had a blood noise like no other.
all through the day my cells scream
like fireworks. all the forks curled into fists
in the drawer. i took a wrong step
& stood on the ceiling. my body 
is self destructive as a default.
i put my organs into the shredder 
one by one until none of them are 
distinguishable. once, i dissected 
a toy car & inside was a beating heart.
i screwed the hood back on 
& pretended i didn't see. i am worried by
how often i pretened i don't see.
just last night i wanted two boys in the alley
exchange eye balls. a soft quick motion.
i looked at the grime in the gutter.
then, just last week, i saw a sundial 
on your back. somehow it told the wrong time.
now, i can't read a single clock.
if it were up to me i would talk to you
with all my body. every organelle 
would have a mouth. once i woke up
in my father's desert. dry & calm.
where does your family go to rest? 
cool & damp in the basement we stand around
the wilting chirstmas ornament boxes.
people need a savior even if only
in the form of a juice box. if we could
just take a trip & never come back.
i don't crave the apocolypse perse 
but i do crave the ending. conclude with me.
in the flyleaf pages we can tell 
the story we've always meant to but never wanted
to smash into words. the signal 
is weak where i'm standing. i could my hand
& touch the ceiling just to listen
to my favorite song again. tin waves
wrecking my stasis. but, then again,
who wants to be balanced & certain?

Shrine

Filling the bathtub with lemons, 
we discussed how to greet a god. 
My brother says you should come
with a camera & a bowl of sugar.
I suggest sunglasses & a thimble 
of honey. Once, an angel mistook me
for someone else. Fed me holy bread
in the dark of his bedroom. Turning
his light on & viewing me he said
“My mistake I’m so sorry.” 
Rice on the windowsills & shoes 
stuffed with berries. A candle 
made of syrup. Planting a tree
in the middle of the altar & hanging 
a bird feeder. He might be winged or
maybe the sky was a last resort.
I was so young. I drew pictures
of the angel in crayon & pinned thrm
to my mother’s back. Can someone hold
what they cannot see? Handfuls of grapes.
Stuffing our mouths with pins.
Devotion is an exercise for only
true believers. Picking leaves off
the thick & rusty moon. Cutting off
swings of my hair. The game is we are 
unsure what he could possibly desire.
Leaving the fridge door open, heaven 
gleams in the white glow. Sink filled 
with corn. A mid-air fish waiting 
to submerge again. This is me 
in the fatherland. My shoes sling 
themselves over a tree branch.
There never enough to give him.