jars

all winter, we ate nothing but black berry jam 
until our teeth turned spider-eyes
in the sugar. the sweet shadow. 
a dead cathedral grew in the yard.
we called it's silhoutte a paragraph.
the high chair filled with baby boil
& a cry slithering down our throats.
the infant oil sleepy even in his-her distress.
i wasn't the father & neither were you.
that happens sometimes babies just
arrive hungry & fading. would be
a spearmint bush soon enough but 
the interim was almost unbareable.
once, we were both chances. someone
chose us over green bright leaves.
often i wish i were the rustle & root.
none of us remembered flavors besides
sharp & sour & sting. paring knife
to pocket. show me what you have. show me
what you have. just a single peanut.
plundered each other's hiding places
always coming up empty handed. 
i hoped you would be bold enough
to keep a secret from me but instead
just more jam jars. we washed the jars out
in the bath tub & stacked them 
like future terraruims on the sink.
i pictured them full of fish eggs
ready to wriggle open. the ocean 
had a fever & all the animals 
were testing out land & just freezing.
shark hanging in the air all december
while we had our morning black berry.
it seemed like the world was 
warping in the congradulations kind of way.
the hat hooks drooped & so we tucked
our caps under our arms as we
plucked along the day. nothing to do
but tell the snow to hurry
& try imagine something else 
besides blackberry to plant next year.
something like iron or ivy 
or even tea pots to make chicken.
it is so hard to prepare 
for what you don't know is coming.
if i would have known winter was 
going to thud like this i would have
asked you to can tomatoes instead. 
i couldn't handle another day.
the spoon. the sugar. taking pictures
of the dangling reef. more jam. 
the pop-kiss of an open lid.
you standing on the stairs
& saying "was i going up
or down?"

judas

took turns being the deserter.
handing each other over to
the big gaping myriad 
with his mouth
all pitchfork & drum. 
traded the bad bad around
until all of us had experience
with betrayal. in the zoo 
there were no curtains for hiding
dinnering. faces in pots of rice.
nothing to do with knees 
or remorse. we just had to know
who was capable of the shove 
& who was just never going to grind.
on the back porch i knit
crowns of thorns till my fingers
juice box bled. a pool party 
for dead frogs at the neighbor ritual.
how come no one has anything to say 
about victory anymore? how it is
actually quit easy to scoop
from another's tongue
if you turn him over to
stray dog-light. butter in 
the oven golding to glow.
washing each others feet 
in messiah mimicry. toes like
tulip buds. i could have been
any martyr but instead i chose
waking up every day to tend
the robot sheep & ward off wolves
with a wooden stick. if i could go back
i'd tell my fragment self 
"don't let anyone disciple you 
into limping." kneeling down
in their bareness i can tell
i won't last long. it's a game
of who is the loudest finger
snapped then gone. i want to be 
the forehead maker. the police
sniffing porches for word.
God with his head farther 
& farther in the clouds,
has no idea at all. 
pray with the old machine 
just to tell him
i am the terrible child 
with a catelog of uncertainties.
if there really is a savior
i hope he's not me. i have nothing
to execute but damage & drain.
boys coming back around.
whose turn it is to 
bite the prophet like 
a bedsheet?

bee eating

hive in the freezer.
quiet blurring wing. drawer of 
teaspoon. where do you put
the bad planets? teeth in a suitecase.
no where to doggie paddle.
a basinette for the brother feet.
bee eating by the favorite statue.
stuffed face. stuffed cheeks.
thrum in summer. thumb in winter.
i have nothing to say about
insect legs. trading glups
of little bird faces. we were
always too hungry to be saved.
no the honey. we needed 
a swallow of sources. 
twenty-five rotations around
the round-about. wheels
stacked high in the closet.
no nightmare video for sharing.
mud rooms upon mud rooms. we just
could have been more tactful
about how much we admit to
in front of the children.
the hive in the fridge
wants answers. frozen queen 
with her bullet children.
could we go to the market
& maybe even find a parcel of men?
just enough to get us through
the limb-burning months?
anything is almost over
if you close your eyes 
& bear down. or is it bare down?
why should i admit anything.
it's all on footage. roll it back.
bee eating in the coffin
with the salad fork. set 
the coffin on the desk top
for a rainy slice. bee eating
in the cupboard where no one else
can get jealous of the hum hum.
teeth to carapice. nothing else
but mustard in the oven.
when i grow my wings
it's all over. it's really 
all over. come lay down 
& wait for the window to open
with me. it's only a matter of years.
i'll pass you a bee.
put it under your tongue.
don't bite down. not yet. 

harvest mice

in the flower home we were unsafe
but at least pollen-powdered
& young. you ran across
a wheat stalk & i made myself
into a sphere. in the dark 
murmur of night i would ask you
what you craved to coil inside.
your answer was always different.
"tennis ball" "dandelion face"
but once you said "a heart."
a breeze blew across the field
making all the trees in the distance
nod in agreement. i didn't ask 
anything else but instead pictured you
inside the chest of a huge animal:
a cat or even a horse.
you'd be so small 
he wouldn't even notice.
warm inside blood, leaving that cove
only for grain. would you miss me
in that red wonderful heart
or did you mean you'd take me with you? 
more often than not i wish you were
a bigger beast so that i could be
the heart-dweller & you the heart.
i wouldn't mind
being seed-sized if it didn't mean 
i am always the comma. a clip 
in the whole tumble of hair.
what are the secrets 
the more substantial animals 
are keeping from us? 
when we nest i think of nothing
but possible destructions.
an ankle could undo days
of weaving & yet we have to--
have to imagine the circle
clutching us. make the loose heart
to dwell inside. sometimes i picture
the whole world as one great beast.
this field merely a patch of shoulder.
every would be small then.
almost as small as us.  

 

once we laid down in the grass

let ants crawl across wrists
& voles gathered under our spines
to discuss their desires. 
you were vibrant 
in your budding.
little mouths spread across your face.
i could have kissed you anywhere.
you could have rolled me into a knot
using only your tongue & teeth. 
all the centipedes circled 
& made coins of us. gliding birds
traded branch for branch
& beak for beak. we counted
clouds & listened to one pass
another. faint sound
of cloth on cloth. i forget
if you wanted to be an astronaut 
or a pie maker & if i wanted
to run across water or sink
deep underneath. the summer 
was all we had. a tunnel 
carved & craved. the morning 
like a dripping planet ready
to be named. we were both 
hard amber candies. 
rock candy knuckles.
one last loose tooth to plant
in the grass & hope for a teeth tree.
the line between friend & lover
is strewn with bed rooms
& christmas lights & popsicles.
nothing could tell me otherwise.
i would get up before you
or you before me & then 
everything would be melancholy
& flat-footed again. let me braid 
your hair. let me snap the neck
of a dandelion for you. 
leave the yellow skull 
blinking upward. a placeholder
for where our bodies posed 
as discarded feathers. 
i will be a boy in the future
if that means anything at all.
a bracelet of beetles 
& just one worm wriggling
across your collar bone. 
sky greying & readying
to drench us in fresh oil.
we get up before thunder. 
voles disperse. bug search for
our warmth. a kiss moth-flies 
between us. me to you
or you to me? 
we don't talk about it
at all. rain comes.  

lioness eats a bull


wake up for warm impact.
dinosaur dust overture-rising.
with the lions sick & gorged on sun, 
i wait. disciple of skin.
patient for the split point.
hoof to dusk. my jaw: horned
& gleaning. the fissure knocks 
through me. fist to earth.
nothing spinning but each iris.
pluck bull from his own heart.
wild search lights eyes
& telephones face. already too late.
all the hooves in the world:
tumbling hale. i was made
to dismantle even the twilight hours.
underneath everything is the same
torrent red impulse. 
he writhes & i think of the children
in their fresh moon teeth
how the meat will look jeweled 
in purse-throats. this isn't
about devour or decore though 
this is about the legs buckling
& my own pressure. i kill whatever river
i desire. everything is a choice
between water or blood. 
don't wait for permission. don't wait 
for weakness. the bull 
believed himself a god. let his horns
swell heavy & ripe. sometimes i fear
i will eat so many that i will be cursed
with a horn--one so big it weighs
my head to the ground. check my face
for signs in the drinking pool. 
nothing to be affraid of. there is
a swallow in the sky. a place to eat again 
with our bracket-legs doing gym 
for the same prey. 
the still animal becomes nothing but heft 
with no soul to do the puppeting. 
i bite first for myself. thick skin 
pryed open. i work to distort 
the solar system 
buzzing inside. keep that 
cavern for myself. check my face
again for a horn. 

light bright

piece me one comet at a time.
you stand on the roof with 
your butterfly net & your sunglasses 
waiting for one to pass.
there is a flower in the dark ocean
of your throat. when did we become
so prone to design? you lay down
to take a break & i plug in 
all my dream water for your shoulders.
i make you a heart & then a sail boat.
the only glow in the world. 
sifting for humid fireflies
to give the secret away to.
we threaded our fingers together
& promised to be blue jays
in our next lives. i blueprinted 
a new steadier tool song 
& we hummed, never yeilding fully
to the potential vibration. 
the diagram was incomplete
& without an escape route. 
everything road on this precise
kind of figure but then there was
the radiant errors in our eyes.
going wrong. going so beautifully wrong.
how could we resist the pattern
from the grass to the artirficial?
i needed you which is to say 
your power source was stronger 
than mine. light bulbs burst
behind your mask. me, a century younger,
i only had a little stove. fed the flame
dollops of coal. the future was
your gameboy. we took turns guessing
the next morning's instrument.
you'd let me write my name 
in pink, using all of the color.
not enough for anyone else.
me, the world's only pink word.
who taught you to be so gentle?
to share your device in the dark?
with the machine, i drafted your arteries
for science or for love. i hung them 
behind the curtain where only i go.
kneeled to them like 
an idol. you have no idea 
what the prototype means to me.
you go on, mesh net hunting 
the next passage. i hear
your foot steps. the sketch
will be all for me. 

grease

he ubered to my throat
with a handful of oil dripping
down to his elbow. on my old laptop
the movie played & told us
where to put our faces. often,
i found it best to just accept
being the girl in his fry.
girl meat: chicken, sometimes hot dogs,
& turkey bacon. he told me this was
his favorite part & then took a bite
out of my throbbing. the bed broke
in half like a communion wafer.
he told his family i was a girl
& i said, "nothing to see here."
i would have done anything to be
the medallion or the slick-back.
took a ride through raw hamburger
& on the other side parked to watch
the moon lay empty. he was always hungry.
i thought being close to him i might
learn to be that ardent with my own 
tunnels. held a fork like a 
clutched key. walked home at night 
vibrating with "no no no." how to 
become a fold. the butcher in the heart
of every shadow. the movie still playing.
we danced on our own cutlets. 
pointed, "there is my thigh" &
he claimed to know me 
in the culinary way. a recipe 
reached for in the earnest credit 
rolling drive into the sunset mouth.
someone can say "i love you"
& just mean "i want to own
the most precious parts of you."
the duct tape it took to be holy.
his body gone but hands still 
worlding around my throat. 
oil stained bed. "i'd like to 
see you again." movie still playing.
starting over. the beach ready
for bare us. the ocean, thickening. 
a girl in the corner
looking down at her ankles.
press her like a folding chair
into nowhere. dollhood 
in the dark. shadows waving 
hello/goodbye. 

life saver


all summer we played the drowning game.
faced down in the pool. held our breath
until the water turned purple as a bruise around us.
teeth like strips of mint gum
we chewed our mouths wild & white.
one neighbor fell victim to air
& became a flotation device. we took turns 
filling him with breath. 
when one of us wouldn't wake up
we dropped a life saver candy 
into the bobbing water & let 
the sugar bring them back to life.
backyard resurrections. clapping as 
we inhaled the sticky humid afternoon.
i swam through so many cavities:
all round & "O-ing." got my leg 
snagged on worry & emptied myself 
of all language. spoke to dead whale ghosts
& sharks lost in rivers. three neighbor bones 
jostling at the pool's blue bottom.
we left them there as reminders of
what can happen-- played with them like 
any other toy. brought a pelvis to the surface
& tossed it far off saying, "race you to it."
could never find the skulls though--
it was as if they became 
their own pools elsewhere. everyone has
another person swimming in their skull
it's just for some it's more literal 
than others. my swimmer mostly leaves me alone
with the exception of thursdays when
he's most lonely & knocks on the pool wall
as if anyone can hear it. i pretend
not to hear him. life is a series 
of strategic neglects. i miss drowning
but it's no fun alone. you need a town's worth 
of toes watching from the edge. if not
it's too mundane. saving yourself
is so unglamorous. i do it almost 
every night. cough up life savers 
onto my own kitchen floor. you can't be
a childhood again. you just have to 
take what you learned from drowning
& apply it elsewhere. i hold my breath
when i wash the dishes. i float 
on my back even when there's
no water.

rot

dear apricots & arugala
& wrinkle forehead & last pair
of sneakers, i am sealing the windows
& doors for you. we are not going
to fester or spoil this year.
brother in the bathroom
brother in the attic. freezer
family unit. fill each room
with fresh blue ice. ceiling snow.
basement bomb shelter.
the big secret is
everything puts of dying 
in winter. standing outside,
waist-deep in snow angels, we had
no fears of green mold blooming
on our paper plate faces.
now as the birds start encouraging 
humidity, i hesitate at everything.
morning dew on my ankles. 
i had a rot starting at my apex
& traveling to the surface.
it was only a matter of sunrises 
before i was nothing but 
a phantom. bought freezer after freezer
& plugged them into the holy sockets.
churning like mules. the cold
slow at first & then disasterously sudden.
putting on jacket after jacket.
why do we resist the inevitable
statue? i just wanted to look
beautiful by the time summer comes,
then i can putrify in a celebratory way.
for now every sits & stares 
at the frozen tv not eating 
or blinking, just learning new ways
to inhale. brothers frozen solid 
like latent cicadas. dad starfished
on the floor. mom a chicken nugget.
everyone so safe in their freeze.
we have all the time in the world now
to stare out & write skull-only poems.
tell stories to ourselves. 
won't you come be frozen with me?
we can ignore everything outside.
let the fires eat the coast 
& mushrooms sell each other conspiracies,
all the while still & waiting
waiting for the next great unthaw.
i have a bed room full of ice already
just for you.