sticker book

you peeled me from my bed neck first.
a finger around my 2 dimensions. we used to 
eat firecrackers in the white-empty. fished
each others glow & adhensive. i was rare 
as a rose in a pear factory. all the production.
pressed into a symbol. you wanted to keep me.
pushed the edges down like furrowed lines.
called me halo or hologram depending 
on the light through the bay window. paging through
my bones. flimsy in the birding. saw the cardinals
turn flat & stagnant & the dinosaurs collapse 
into pictograms. eveything could be made figurine.
everything could be held still. your thumbs 
like rogue pilots flying planes engine-empty.
water churning beneath our feet. old aquifers
disucssing unknowable politics. setting your teeth
one by one on the sink in the bathroom. 
the locker room expanded to hold the whole house.
boys came & stuck themselves to the walls.
the difference between a portrait & a puncture
is a matter of equipment. hold still.
removing one too many from the stove. oven mit.
clothing iron. laying side by side 
on the counter to cool. you & me just little
printed dreams. our edges almost touching.
you closing your eyes the way a feather 
gets lost in a crowded museum.

caress

i wanted you to hear my airplane 
in your bowl of soup. propeller propeller
stirring the sequence. how to be touched
like a licorice rope. jump over 
a ripe stone. our hearts: slimy oranges 
in their sweet rot. the field ready.
the meadow blooming with tiny spoons.
could we really have grazed on each other's
side roads? parking on long island.
the way streets refuse to link elbows.
roar of your race car in the tail-light lullaby.
tell me i'm soft. tell me i'm safe
from all edges. 
supermarket for fingers. open palm. spring of soot.
we walked almost hand in hand until we didn't.
lived icicle graveyards empty &
without mourners. you took the fish hook 
in your mouth. you asked me to pull you along.
tea kettle over eager. unboiled water.
chirping children. midnight illegal fireworks.
thumb in a jar of peanut butter. 
to be touched is to be 
obliterated or maybe i'm just american. 
picking up the pieces is 
my favorite part. oh look my clavical. oh yes
here is one wrist without the other.
"pairs" are a myth. there is always 
a oneness to come back to. when i read tarot 
i'm only looking for one answers
"it is okay." sometimes, when we sleep,
we come apart. lay facing each other
like parallel avenues. 
i am the tree that breaks all the rules. 
reaches an arm across the way.

ocd seimotics 

you are not your face but 
the disappeared in the right mirror.
when did a motion become a function
of the worm's worry? i need hands like
i need water. drinking in fists.
i should have been born a gyroscope.
could have been all kinds of lean.
just wanting please one morning
where the sun calls my name like she once had.
no more legs, just paragraphs & parables.
how do you learn to save yourself?
the trees slipping their feet out of their slippers
& running like wind tunnels. i just want
an easier body. one less box for the eagle.
twin scissors on the staircase making
an arguement for more salt more salt.
blue mold lodged in cheese like crown jewels.
i want to lose everything in this.
throwing the suitecase down the stairs
to have it spill at the bottom.
please i want to be less dire & pressing.
just want to flip the noontime 
like a lily-lever. no more rush
just silt & old stream. 

grounding poem

let's breathe like orchids. i want to be
a castle in the midst of a latest water or else,
drowning, i'd like to have long hair again.
hearing a foot step dragon. where do i belong?
where belongs me? 
my lightning rods turn to pasta. a storm cloud
asks what it should call me. i want the old life--
the one without anything at all. i just laid 
& ate parsnips. i was basically dead.
the air was cold & bruised. i love the way
a wound can remove you from yourself.
standing above you say, "yes that is
my muscle surfacing." a box cutter grow 
under the big pine tree & i asked why it is
we have to decision our way always
into bedroom. the blinds blink themselves away
until i'm just one wide wide window.
i would like to wire my mouth shut. i'd like
chickens in the yard. to wash my hair 
in the jupiter sink. love you without urgency
or detonation. i don't know if i can do that.
my heart is a tomato timer or a pin cushion.
all i know how to do is say, "more more more."
in the before times, we would eat at the food court
& the park bench & the train unspooled us
like maple candy. like an orange, peeling off each lobe
& feeding you. sweet as ice bergs. sharp 
as new boys. i'm standing here
& swaying like a state-of-the-art old tree. 

reaction time

the suitecase full of violin bows. 
horses that strung them with their tails
& their catastophes. i carry a measuring tape
to catelog the distances between stop
& signature. i always realize too late that someone
wanted to love me. one day their house is empty.
singing like a flute notch. she plays
with her own hair for comfort. she saves strands
like probable notes. write me a letter
in the key of C. every cord is made
of old bees & their intentions. between now
& collision i would like to eat fries with my hands.
wipe the grease off on my thighs. a mountain 
strains to remember the flautline & the push
but stumbles on a written test. fill in the blank.
fill in the blank. we discuss fractiles 
& their deepending futures. move the image
searching for a catch-able bird.
a delay can be the difference between a porch
& a podcast. the forks undrawer themselves demanding
hairdressers. when shouldn't have asked 
for the large. why would we get the large?
in my hometown, everyone has a poem
they haven't written. mine is about obstructions.
a damn for the damn. logs piled like leg bones
in front of the only door. when i emerged 
i was not the finally but the waited & waited.
in the yard, birds collect their feathers 
like playing cards for a future game. i look
in the mirror & cover my face with one hand
then move it away. 

intermuscular planets

deposited like sewing needles 
into a ripe tomato. i was the galaxy grime 
& you were the insertion tutorial. 
a nurse sits on the end of the bed 
& smooths & smooths. there's nothing
to be done about the throbbing. walk it off.
walk off the edge of a sturdy precipice 
& learn to hover like jupiter. 
for my 10th birthday i was rewarded 
with my very own. a sharp jagged planet.
i wanted something blue. all the water
stolen by our own. i pinch the muscle.
feel the entrance like a hinge or
a tanned skin. drumming like a dragon
in the throws of a magic episode.
replace magic with manic. i was 
holding as still as possible & still
grazed the vein now weeping. 
i'm full of statues & statistic.
one in every three men feels useless
after learning gravity is what hold
us all down. mirror at the back of my throat.
a whole vanity. brushing my hair.
one hundred strokes. the texture of ice
after talking to it. planets in each thigh.
their hunger for moons & reaching
for asteroids. comets like gnats buzzing
above the sleeping bananas. i used to want
to be a real boy. now i want to be
galactic. want to be full of mass.
want to pull objects from their own desires
towards me. i transform socks into sail ships.
spoons into lighthouses. glint of a candle
between my ribs. flicker boy shadow 
in the ghastily noon swamp. wipe blood
from the doorframe. close it shut. 

heimlich maneuvers for gramophones

i begged for the crab apple tree. watched its hearts
burst under my shoes as they shed on the driveway.
sour little horns, brass in their shaking. 
a mouth piece gets lodged in my throat
in the middle of the night & i pace the hallway
with goose noise until i can get it out.
in the attic is my father's gramophone 
& whole skeletons of records--their gills repleat 
with dead men's voices. what does it feel like
to give a sound over to etching. i would make a record
of your laughter, play it over & over. the gramophone 
was choking & we were alone. i knew it was a crab apple
by the way the creature doubled over like hopscotch.
coughed & coughed. no matter how wide 
the narrow returns. breath comes & goes through
an opening the size of a cherry. spit a pit 
& make a hole through the window. almost everything
is perminable. the dying gramophone tried to sing.
i saw ghost pigeons fall from his mouth.
driveway sick with sweet & syrup. how to account
for all the sugar? i reached inside. i told 
the music to hold still as possible. searching  
i find water & ocean drowning. feel fish thrum
against the back of my hand. wisps of cattails.
the kiss of lilies. i reach the crab apple 
hard & vibrating. pull it out & throw it far away
across to the next town. the gramophone gasps.
lays & stares at the sun. more crab apples fall
at our feet. i carry his noise in buckets
back up to the attic before i cradle him there too.
memory is then maybe about who is gathering 
& not what is gathered. humid in the attic
i ask him to play a song. instead he plays bird songs
he heard while he thought he was dying. 

extension cord

i walk out to the middle of corn field 
& lay on my back, looking up
at the great greening sky. the stalks 
are still low this early in the season.
closing my eyes, i ask god for a television
& one falls beside me. boxy & old.
probably flung from a back room.
god often only donates what is no longer
of use to him. i set the TV on my lap
& promise to feed him energy. plug him in
somewhere eternal. only, there are no plugs
in the midst of a corn field. cradle him.
smooth his forehead. i too was once
just a television. patient for feeding.
a simulation of geese glide over head
on a loop. the glitch is still being worked out
but that's what they've said all year.
sometimes i look at my hand & then it's gone.
nothing but bone & smog. the house's power strip 
shutters & groans. i leave the TV 
in the field where he is safe & travel
to the sources. find my outlet weeping
& tell it's alright. it's coming. she calms down.
nothing is coming, i just wanted to comfort her.
then from the den i find an extension cord: 
coarse from use. knicks all along the throat.
stroll the miles & miles back into the field.
field of sway & drone & fire hazard. field of
lime sound & loneliness. i find the television 
right where i left him. push the plug
into his back & watch the static storm.
voices behind a wool veil. 
lay down again & listen.

eating cows

in the pasture everything is hungry.
the grass waves goodbye goodbye goodbye
to a beloved cocoon hanging from the day-moon.
we never meant to. walked out there 
with bibs & forks. my brother & i & our
short round fingers. when i first became vegetarian
carrots started to speak to me & ask
"what is your favorite kind of listening?"
i'd swallow them whole like submarines.
but the cows. the cows know what we intend.
they lay down as if to predict rain
but the sky is bright & loud. sun braiding
my arm hairs. we used to shave our faces
down to the bone. feel that gutted glistening
in the wild night's bath. now, all we can do
is chase them around the yard. hoof to soil.
soil to rock. rock to core. i want to be
ground & grounded. lightning's brief forest.
holding hands with cows & promising them
not to eat them. no more dinners. nothing 
to see here. all fours. the animal's 
fortune eyes. in them we see our faces
warped & weary. drinking from the river's tea.
sleepy with lack of protein. one cow
eats another gently as can be. bite by bite.
wipes his month on the grass. the devoured cow
just closing her eyes. i don't know anymore
what it might mean to feed. a video of 
a man chewing is projected on the moon.
i cover my eyes. my brother says, "you first"
& i don't know what exactly he means 
but i start anyway. forks in my pocket.
cows, scattering. grass waving goodbye goodbye. 

future homes

i used to want to sleep boat-like in a channel 
between two dead islands. squeeze light bulbs like lemons
& brush the filaments from my chest. on the side of the highway 
a wreckage is removed, leaving only glass. 
in our house we'll have a room dedicated to memory.
walls stripped bare. enough space to spread out 
any loose ends. sometimes i braid the hair i don't have.
go to the hardware store & purchase every single door.
an exit is the most crucial part of a living room.
in the library you'll have your shelves & i'll have mine 
but after years of loving the shelves will mix 
until we use poetry as a recipes. eating sonnets
on a deck. the porch swing gaining wings with age.
to crave domesticity is maybe to crave death.
not in the morbid way with a hearse but in the way
rocks learn not to breathe. i want a predictable affair
with the windowsill. curtains to smell & worry.
a tea kettle prone to hovering. in your old apartment
the kitchen always smelled like meat. i washed my hands
in the fern pot. you moved your car. i laid
on the speckled carpet. sometimes i hire construction men
to lay hard wood floor across my heart. they come with
staple guns & lilies. the lilies are because
they are in love with me. when you're not around
i wear doorknobs as necklaces. ask strangers 
if they want to turn & open. i shuck my life open
every year or so just to see its red then 
i shut it closed & weep. in our house
the bed room keep you & i shielded from 
all the can openers & trip wires. i will
kiss your neck & you will not turn to ice.
there will be a window that opens easy 
as an eyelid. flutter open. the cars driving by
on a sunday when everything is rolling over.
your shoulders. please want me like a blueprint
& not like the mailbox. oh enough from me.
a fire engine whirls across the moon with nothing
at all to say to us.