zip tie

i do not think i was made for emails.
instead, i think i was meant to dig roots
from the spring earth & talk to birds
with a fire tooth. lately i have been zip-tying
my life together. the lawn mower & 
the bumper & the chipped plastic underneath
the car's ugly mouth. we drive until the country 
is a fruit roll up. the thorns are all that's left
this time of year. i watch as the yard, once
a meadow, becomes a skeleton dance.
the fixes do not last. the zip ties break.
get pulled open by my teeth. crushed gods
in the gravel. yesterday i named the car kill 
each after my grandparents. they rose 
& followed me back to the house where
we had a little seance dinner. i keep asking
the deer if there are better fixes. they say,
"try sinew" & i fail to. i do not have time
to catch a heart & break it. i do not have time
for singing in the way a hunt requires. instead,
i have a gun shop i drive past. i have
an overlord i can tithe to in order to purchase
my fragments of his eternity. i have 
a mailbox that fills with teeth if i am
not careful. the deer tell me, "the body holds
all the you need if you take it apart." 

oil well sings of the future 

in the dip-bird field where
everyone is a bucket, i hear the ancient
talking. it is asking about how
we taste the sun & if there is enough.
this is really two questions separated
by 'if' & 'will.' there will not be enough
& some people will climb a ladder
to the moon & some people will burrow
with the rabbits & other people
will turn into statues & satellites. 
when i was little i had a phase of 
renewable energy obsession. i tried
to convince my family to buy 
an electric car. there was always 
a hole in the ceiling or a broken door.
time passed & i changed my goals.
maybe a wind mill or a solar panel field.
nothing came of all of that. we talked
to dinosaurs. they explained, "the ending
is always darker than you think it will be."
if there was a comet, the end did not come 
like a blown out candle. instead, it burned down
until even the tree could not remember
their language. once we set a fire in 
our yard. it was mostly compost. the smoke
came in the shapes of gods. the dinosaurs 
in every engine gasping for the memory.
when i am syrup i hope i will be sweet.
something pourable. a tongue outstretched.
we have not learned how to catch each other
when we go extinct. instead, this world 
says, "will you take me to the park lot?"
i go there. lay in a parking spot like a car. 
wait for night to spill. 

flip a coin

they are trying to build
a new automated factory in my hometown.
the ceo says, "personless manufactoring"
into a room of money people & they
chatter & salivate. they are erecting 
this machine in the guts of an old foundry
that i used to sneak into as a kid. 
it's by the railroad that seldom runs anymore.
inside, the walls are stone & cool & damp.
where will the genderfuck kids go
to be weirdos without enough abandoned places?
i guess at least they still have the cemetery. 
these decisions always feel like 
flipped coins or magic eight balls or roulette 
for these people. my sibling asks me,
"do you think we will still be able
to drink the water?" the creek in town 
once ran dry. it was a drought summer 
& the dead fish looked like shoes. i do not
respond to them. instead, we go into the yard
beneath the pine tree & watch the squirrels 
get fat for winter. the developer is from
australia. what does he know about
a pennsylvania small town where the corn 
grows tall & the kids play in the graveyard?
i picture him in a tower, flipping coins.
his eyes, coins spinning. his teeth, trapped doors.
my father works in a factory up the street. 
i know what it is like to live with a factory
in the house. in the bathtub. in the ceiling.
i come from people who do not
flip coins. we burry them like the squirrels.
we harvest skunk cabbage by the creek
boil it three times. serve it with butter. 
my sibling asks me if i think the new automated factory
will work. i explain that it doesn't really
matter if it does. this man will dance in coins.
the trees will bend into corkscrews. 
we will shovel. find a new well. teach it how
to breathe again as best as we can. 

shark love poem

to test your love i turn into
a bathtub shark. i let my fin 
peak through the surf & i trace
circles in the water. you bring me
video games & cubed steak. 
i tell you i am lonely in new ways.
that i am afraid i will remain 
cartilaginous the rest of my life. in the end
it is still easier than what i was before
which was a little human in the mouth
a big machine. i prefer to be more
& more animal. sometimes you will
sit on the side of the tub &
beg me to tell you something about
myself. i feel like i am a draining species.
soon to be a pale creature of the dark
sucking the language from the footprints
of the world. i have become less & less
able to name my sadness. instead,
it has arrived as an organ. there is
my grief. it moves involuntary. lungs. 
you tell me you still love me 
even though i am a shark. even though
my blood is like a puzzle box. you kiss me
on the forehead. compliment my smoothness.
i peer out of the water. i ask,
"could you be a shark too?" mostly, you tell me
i am morbid to even request this. let us
evade our genders together though. 
there is enough room for me to chase your fin
in circles. maybe we could swim enough
to make an ocean of the house. our gills
like pleated skirts. eyes, doorknob holes.  

feather windmill

i have begun replacing whatever i can with
chicken feathers. the flock is molting 
& i have a harvest in every brush. i love
to hold the plumage up to the light 
& read them like film negatives. in my dead aunt's
house we found all sorts of feathers.
it was like in the last years of life she was trying
to fly. i did not visit enough. i did not 
call enough. instead i made postage stamps
of our childhood. held a mirror up to 
a wonky moon. i collected her feathers & they
turned into film negatives. pictures of 
all the family on the beach without faces.
i could have asked what the river meant to her.
my goal is to live in a feather house which is
to say i want to see a stop motion life. as a kid
i made my own clay-mation films. the sun
always moved in the background like a sulking daughter.
i moved feathers. flew to heaven & saw nothing
but billboards. i don't know what my aunt
thought of me. i think i was a toy boat
in a different river. still, in the summer, we used
to stand in the yard & play lawn darts. 
sometimes, if the year was right, one of the aunts
would fly. only i ever saw them. they would reach
the top of the pear tree to pluck one, soft & ripe. 
i ate a fruit only once in all the years i lived there. 
it turned into feathers in my hands so i tried
to eat as fast as i could. the past is always trying
to become a bird. i wrap us in it. keep out the cold.
the chickens admire each other's photographs.
in the blur of the morning the rooster calls out
to wake up the sun. a big camera on the horizon.
my aunt slept for the last year of her life
in the big sleepy armchair. birds filled the house. 
doves & sparrows. photographs in the closet
beating their wings to pieces. 

dark web darling

my uncle used to tell me stories 
about the dark web as if it were
an underworld kingdom. 
back then i used him as a father
for reasons we don't need 
to stir fry. we were always driving somewhere.
an altar or a department store. 
he has the biggest hands in my family.
they gripped the steering wheel 
like a dinner plate. we drove until
the street lights became stars.
i am not sure where he heard 
about the dark web. me and him enjoyed
the shadowier things in the world.
he talked about it like a ghost story. 
pages for assassins & pages for cannibals
& pages for secret holy objects. 
my uncle is a story-teller. i am not sure
where his tales departed from reality
but they always entered a realm of
the mythical. a talisman. a cursed object. 
a man who stands on the ceiling
of your house at night. we confronted
each other's hauntings. i was only ten or so. 
him, in his forties & living in the other half
of a house we shared. sometimes i wonder though
if maybe he got onto the dark web somehow. 
where would he go? what would he bring back
for us? we have grown apart. this year
i tried calling him & texting him but he lets
his phone die. tells his stories to himself now. 
the web, expecting into a net. us, 
writhing fish. you can see his computer glow
from the driveway all times of the night.

yogurt swim lessons

i want to be a little yogurt culture 
in your big tub at the back of the fridge.
maybe they write poetry in 
their goop. i do not take enough time
to talk to the bugs. we have so many spiders
there days & i mostly ignore them. you ask me
how i am doing & all i can manage
is that my head feels full of wool.
sometimes i open the day like a can
of baked beans. i eat them with
a plastic fork. enjoy none of the process.
i am at least there aren't any bombs here. i am
at least there is a mailbox to open
& dispose of junk mail. i drive my car with the holes
in the tires. is it too much to ask
to have a day without grease? probably. i know
i am entitled. i know i have too many 
mushy dreams. i wash
my hands more than i need to. maybe i would
not be a good yogurt culture. afterall,
we usually let the yogurt go bad & end up
having to feed it to the chickens. 
i know i would not be talented 
in decomposition. i am resistant to most
forms of exhale. i wake up on the roof 
where the hawks are plotting a new government.
i tell them, "please go for it."
they think i'm being too eager & they think
i might be a spy. that's fair. i might be. 
but you know we could have a nice life
in the yogurt. i could buy you a yogurt house
& we could backstroke slow & easy.
pretend the fridge light is our brief sun. 
in the dark tell each other stories. voices like
spilled marbles. my fantasies are getting
smaller & smaller with age. i do not know
what is smaller than a yogurt culture
but i am sure i will find it & it will be terrible. 
i eat yogurt by the front windows. 
watch the cars go by in the dark. their headlights
like ice cream scoopers. i stay up too late.
i go to the yogurt in my head. lay there
until there is no more day to spend. 

moon flea market for the easy gods

we go to pluck branches from
our favorite trees. i like the ones
with doe legs. you like the ones
with scorpions. i am tired in news ways
every week. it is like digging a hole
in the hard earth. sometimes i watch
as the dinosaurs nest in their
patches of sun. i too have been
too big for my history. the comet,
like a skipped stone, headed for
our science fair. the moon is full
& i makes me wonder how many galaxies 
had her before us. in the thrift store
i like to smell clothes. i like to check
their pockets for compasses & change. 
sometimes i'll find a grocery list & follow it
as a form of seance. we do not talk to the dead
enough. well, i guess that's not true.
we talk to some dead way too much & others,
most others, not enough. but i know there was
a salvation army looking place in the universe
where the moons were sitting. dust gathered
in the corners & tired people worked there
sweeping the aisles while the gods
with too much money picked up moons
& held them up to the light. picked at
their price stickers with their fingernails. 
too much. too broken. too many spirits.
our moon was just right to someone.
they are gone now. in the religion in my head
the gods are like shoppers. come & go. 
covet each other's ghosts. pick up the moon.
our wild & glowing moon, & say,
"this is a good deal." once i found the moon
while i was paging through dresses hoping
to find one i lost years ago in a fire. the glow
turned my hair into willow trees. i touched it
only for a moment. i didn't feel worthy 
to purchase her but i wish now that i would have.
i would have kept her secrets. i would have 
ignored the calls from gods, wondering if i have
that bit of silver they used to see from
the corner of their eye. that is the thing
about power. it is best to hide from it. 
find a whale to swallow you. 
then, never ever come out. 

you don't look disabled, you aren't really disabled  

i thought about lining
up all my evidence. i thought about
explaining how i learned
to use a cane. how my lungs turn
into hindenbergs. about how
i count the stars backwards. about how
i couldn't read for so long 
but still loved stories. a list of slurs
used against me. 
instead i want to tell you
a story about the empire. this machine
seeks to diminish anything 
which it cannot control. if i am not disabled
then maybe you can imagine that
you never will be either. if i am
not disabled then maybe you are
more comfortable with 
the sunsets of your body.
if i am not disabled then maybe it is
easier for you to believe the world
is just. do you believe the world is just?
maybe you prefer to believe
i am not disabled so that you can
rid yourself of any blame. how does it feel? 
i can tell you do not pick enough berries. i can tell 
you have never talked in the dark
with someone who moves
through the world like you. how does it feel to author
a version of the universe in which you are alone?
in the end i am not worried about
whether or not you think i'm disabled. 
my beloveds teach me who i am & who
i am not. i considered spending a hope
on you. hoping that maybe one day 
you are loved in a way that heals you.
i do not hope for that though. you can have
your own hopes to spend in your
tunnel of knives. i live amoung the dandelions.
i wear my knee braces when i need to.
tend to my hives & find a way 
to light candles in the eyes of 
this empire's ugly skull. 

phone book oceanography 

i found you in the yellow pages
& you were a dentist. we drove until
my father was a whale & my mother
didn't have a job anymore. i thought
you were my friend from elementary school
but you were just a man with drains
for eyes. i take a photograph of you
to remember the ocassion but when
i go to look at the picture you are
not in the frame. there are some events
i don't write about directly because
then someone might call me & ask me
about what really happened. nothing.
nothing really happened. in a child mind
everything is just a memory. the past
digging herself a place to lay down.
when i was really thinking of jumping
off my roof i looked at jobs every day.
i once interviewed for a job as 
a pet crematorium transporter. i think
it actually would have suited me more
than most of the stuff i've done. 
sometimes my dead pets call me.
they find me in the phone book. it's almost always
the quail because i could have done 
a better job with them. they don't blame me.
when i changed my name i became obsessed
with finding people who had my name too. 
there is actually a few. i called one once
& he picked up, confused. i breathed
into the phone & told him we had the same name.
he hung up immediately. what was he running from?
i mean sure he probably thought i was
a crazy person (i am, thank god). didn't he 
want to know more? my parents still
have phone books in their house. as a kid
i would sleep inside them. hear all the names
like a ritual around me. home alone 
i called whoever i wanted. flowers in the sink.
my father's whale calls. his hands holding
a shower curtain. the room, like a music box.