flute case

i play instruments poorly.
as a kid, i did not practice. 
the oboe whose sound came out like a 
a lost loon & the drums in the attic 
whose rhythm did not keep me. 
then the guitar who would walk into my bedroom 
on all fours. i had pictures of my father
playing his electric on little bar stages, his hair
wet with sweat. my fingers are strolling things.
could never press down hard enough.
the callouses that came & went like
door side slippers. instead of music 
i have learned to collect sound.
when my brother wasn't home i would
play his violin. scattered notes. wire birds.
the trumpet without a bell. the piano
with teeth like a whale. there are symphonies 
i can give one note to. i see them lighting up
across the town at night. a note sung
into a bathroom fan. i do not know still
the difference between noise & music.
my mother played the flute before i was born
but never after. i found her flute case 
in the attic. assembled that little creature.
pressed my lips to its face & let it hold seance.
a sound is a voice which we share only in the moment. 
i played with the keys & put the flute back 
where i found it. traced the smilie face sticker
on the outside. stuck there by my mother 
when she was young. i hear the song 
the corn sings when it is almost ready to be taken. 
as my hair grows back i think of horsehair & 
the long bow of my brother's bass.
i am okay with being a sound collector 
& not a musician which might be another way
of saying that i am a poet. 
 

fishing lure

i was told in a dream,
"be careful of that which calls you."
in a museum of fishing lures,
i am an eel. a ribbon of wanting
in a pond of fists. the undesirable catch.
o all the razor blade apple at midnight. 
i put hooks through my lips so that
the gods will know that i am already taken
in so many directions. i have been pulled
into pieces. i have lost jaws & eyes.
lived two lives at once & then three
& then five. a group of eels is called
a "knot." i made that up but in doing so
it was true at least for a moment.
i find lures hanging from a tree
outside the house. i do everything i can
to not make eye contact. once i bought
a boatload of deaths i didn't need.
the plastic smelled like sex toys & ghosts. 
my favorite lures are the soft ones.
the ones that squish between your fingers
like fruit snacks or rubber chickens. 
i had a friend who let me play with
his father's lures until my fingers smelled
like shrimp. glitter bugs. feathered fish. 
i stole one. took it home. slept with it
beneath my pillow. woke up in a frying pan
where my eyes turned into balloons.
i do not trust any beautiful something
but every once in a while i give in.
let the taste yank me to the moon. 
i never come back. i never come back. 

lettuce resurrection 

i talk to the rabbit about which leaves
are best for weeping into. they chew holes
through the bottoms of our hearts.
we leak & fill a ship that was meant
to save us. i am so tired that when
i wake up there is a garden on the ceiling
& i just don't pick it. fruit, thick tomatoes 
& a portrait of my grandfather.
our relatives all die too soon. i remember
my grandmother's voice only in creaks
& the texture of her lipstick. in her bathroom
she had sea shell soap. 
once i stole one & kept the secret.
the rabbit are growing tentacles from
their faces. the lettuce is going to seed
which means it's going alien on us.
i forget often how to be a person &
i accidentally scare people by staring. i cannot
help that i arrived without batteries. 
i cannot help that there are no leaves left
so i have to dress myself like a carrot.
legs crossed. dirt born. i drive a car without
windshield wipers. i sleep in the lettuce.
soon it will be winter & green will go
into the back of my throat. you reach
for it sometimes & i gag. i think 
we have a future. i think i will live
as long as the goldfish allow me to. 
the older the get the more reaching i do.
i sympathize with the radio. it wants us
all to sit down. it has a lettuce patch
between its ribs. the rabbits come
but do not eat. 

toy catalog

i opened the bird in the mail 
& she said, "you want more than you have."
i took toy catalogs to my room
where i gave them halos. circles
around each desire. a clothe doll
& a robot dinosaur. i hardly ever
got the trinkets i pined for 
but it was a relief to have
a place to hold that hunger. i wish i still got 
catalogs in the mail so that i could
have a yearning shrine.
a catalog full of new toys. these would
be angels & a front door without fissures.
a pair of knees. an easy night with
one great snake. then i could
carry the pages like a dead bird.
burry it beneath the cedar alongside
the quails who did not live long enough.
i make lists but they are never alive. 
we used to plan our future 
on the whiteboard behind the bedroom door.
the lists there are now a year old.
they grow moss. the words turn
into worms. i sometimes take walks
& pretend i will return to an easier life. 
i open the mailbox on the way home 
& there is a toy catalog curled up. 
i do not open it. i place it right into
the recycling where she beats
her wings. all the halos come together
to become orbits. laps around 
a beautiful place. i tell the portal
in the roof, "there is nothing else i need."

brother text

i shoot a rocket into our father's face. 
in the summer, we don't have the same hair. 
you, with the dark curls & me with the waves 
of deep brown. you call me & i don't answer
because i'm in a ping-pong garden
waiting for you. it is morning or it is night.
bees die in your window. i know they do.
your room used to be the attic where we played
until the moon showed up & knocked
on the roof. our parent's house has colonies 
in the walls. ghosts & bugs & daggers. sometimes we 
manage to get coffee. we take turns lying
to each other in the way only brothers can.
i will i will i will. i wake up as you & fold my body
like a dress shirt. we used to go to church 
& take turns washing our hands with
the peach scented soap in the big stall
with the sink inside. over the speakers, the priest
blessed all kinds of body. i still cannot believe
you went to mass during college. we didn't see
each other much then. me, only when
i was driving home & i wanted to be loved.
you, only when you wanted to tell me
about a girl who didn't love you back.
our father's face shatters into a million pieces.
like his flecks of beard in the downstairs bathroom
from shaving each day. we played once
in the garden. neither of us even needed hands.
you asked me, "do you remember? do you remember?"
& i always answered "yes" even when i didn't. 

candle forest

we walk without any legs
in the clearing. i have a face 
in my backpack i use just for you.
you woke me up without
any words. your fingers like
fiddleheads. 
they say in the candle forest
that everything is brought out
into the light. all around are
the shadows. they hold
all the parts of me that you
cannot see. sometimes when
we argue i picture a house
on fire. it is a relief. the animals
in the forest are all on fire
& so are their ancestors. 
in the candle forest there are 
wick trimmers who cut more
than waxed string. i stick out
my tongue to have it trimmed.
just a little off the top. the end
that's severed holds everything
i will never say. what a beautiful
newt. he runs into the shadows
to become whatever monster 
i cannot. the ends of our hair 
gets singed. smoke makes clouds.
the clouds peer down in galaxy spirals.
you are the wick cutter or you
are the birds who light up the sky
like stray stars. i used to think
i wanted to be loved. i used to think
i asked for you. did you make
the candle forest or did? i when
i was sleep walking. when my face
was on & bright? all i know is
i am one of the commas who
scurry away when you lift the rock
under which i was trying to hide.
i ask you which candle you want
for me to carry home 
& you tell me, "all of them." 

bank account seance 

last winter when only the rats were talking
i would refresh my bank account app
in the hopes that there would be
enough. i started to see money in the wild.
pennies on the sidewalk & birds made
of dollar bills. they make it so hard to believe
in abundance. a man without a face
shouting at headless people. the tv died
& then the heater. the trees were bare. i turned
one of my credit cards into a dragonfly 
to keep it away from me. it was so angry. ate a hole
through the roof. we patched it with
nothing but our hands, holding them 
like a tiny umbrella all afternoon through a late snow.
in the dark of the upstairs when you were
already asleep, i set up candles. i sat by myself
with the stinky bugs, experiencing their
furnace mirages. i closed my eyes. held out 
my hands. i asked the bank account to 
give me a sign it was there. that we were
going to keep going. that we were going
to make it. the creature stirred, feathers & all. 
stood briefly above me. a looming god 
of dimes & numbers. i wanted to meet
the version of myself who has enough.
instead, the moon melted in the night's mouth. 
the being left. took nothing with it. 
i opened the app to find the account
still just as vacant as before. i wanted 
to crawl into. tell the numbers to dance.
here is a bag of carrots & a gallon of milk. 
the dragonfly returning through the throat.
the house not a house but a latched room
in the basement of a story. what if we had
enough. what if we had enough. 

dog celebrity 

i follow a dog celebrity on tiktok who has
decided to start a religion. i figure at least
this god is soft. at least he eats from
the ground. when i say "i was raised catholic"
i always smell the wood of the sacristy.
once i saw a dog in there. i follow him into
a closet full of gold. he was gone. my favorite parts
about church were outside of it. the field
& the old limestone kiln. i think the dog
in the church was the celebrity dog. i feed him
tokens on a live stream. he radiates light.
becomes more powerful. invents holidays.
the holidays are glossy & i weep. i take a year
off work & end up inside a candle. i am the oil
feeding the flame. the screen is a lake. 
we fish & the celebrity dog walks on water.
it is late & i stay up to stay on the live as long
as i can. i do not want to miss a fleck of wisdom.
when i was a child, i believed god could hear
my every thought. i pictured him crouched 
in the corner not touched by my night light.
the dog celebrity dies. it is sudden. i refresh
his page as if there will be more. the way our bodies
make a sky & then leave a hole. the feed
like a ribbon of prayers, each one, a way of asking,
"how am i going to--" i don't let videos finish
anymore. i am looking for him. digging
in some kind of glow. the legs running
through each other. there is a light in the church
that never goes out. a little red flame. 
it's supposed to be god. it goes out & nothing
happens. i upload a video of myself inside
the candle. it gets three videos. those people
eat off the ground. it is night & no one else
is awake but me & the dog celebrity, wherever
he is. i pray to him even though he is gone. i ask, 
"can you give me a fresh place to spill my teeth?" 

tick 

i have perfected the art
of extractions. i use the silver tweezers
& grab each little god by the head.
ticks, like flecks of red planet. one on
my chest & another on my thigh. 
you tell me i never talk about anything
& i know it's true. i treat my emotions
like boats without drivers. they glide
just above my head & do not stop. 
the grass has grown tall this year. 
i become more & more against the notion 
of blades. i imagine the yard as wild 
as can be. letting it eat the house. 
the ticks, knocking at the windows
like fathers. the first tick i ever got
bit just behind my knee. my father
painted it with nail polish until it fell off.
a fresh gem. i wanted to keep it.
instead we buried it like treasure. i have
for a long time been convinced that
if i said everything i meant that 
i would end up alone. my father told me
that his father would search his scalp
for ticks each night. he didn't use tweezers
to remove them; instead, he grasped
the drinkers with his hard fingernails.
held them in the bathroom light before 
burning them in a candle flame. fireworks
over a taken city. i imagine each tick
taking with it an emotion or memory.
something i did not want anyway.
pocketbooks in the dark. i usually
tear them apart but once i found one
in the morning. i assume it drank all night.
we had argued in the dark & i had gone
to sleep feeling like a twig. i tore
the creature apart. my blood on my hands.
i wiped them on my pants. rinsed
the pieces down the drain. i looked
in the mirror & saw my father for a second
& then i just saw myself. 

grass fed

i ate with my hands. got the good fork
& stuck it into the lawn. they say
some animals eat better than others. 
a spoonful of powered milk. boiled onions
from the cemetery in our yard. 
the fields around us grow feed corn. hard 
kernels like piano keys for a tiny god. 
once i bit into one. a stolen fruit. 
my father scolded me. he said, "we do not take
from the fields that are not ours." 
i watch a video of a farmer feeding his chickens' eggs
back to them. the farmer says, "this is so they don't go
to waste." i wish i could devour
the planets that rise from my body. 
instead, i sell them. coins & bobble heads.
sweet feed from a sky hand. i call my goats
back from their night of tree feasting. 
they tell me, "i have seen hunger & it is velvet."
a news article says, "the food pantry shelves
are empty." in the comments there are people
laughing with bellies full of shells & bones.
i have not looked at meat in supermarkets 
or butcher shops for years. today i do.
it is not out of reverence. i am curious.
how do we talk about bodies? grass-fed. 
ground beef. the mouth is the naming limb. 
i open mine. place grass seeds on my tongue.
the field begins to sprout. wildflowers too.
tonight, we pull down the stars like
cups of water. all creatures are designed
to fill that which is empty. 
i pour moths into my lungs. the chickens 
scratch the earth for keys.