hair tie

my hair is finally long enough to pull back again.
sometimes i feel like i'm getting younger.
not physically. definitely not physically. 
just in the sense that my hungers are returning.
when i was small i begged my mom to braid
my hair. she did once. we were all busy. 
the car was crashing & the windows were full
of wasps & the house was falling & rising like waves.
i don't remember what it felt like but if i reach
my hands behind my head i can pretend. 
in high school sometimes girls would play 
with each other's hair in chorus. a french bread.
a crown braid. a fish tail braid. mine was 
short & bleached & angry. frayed ends like 
bad paintbrush tips. the last hair cut i got 
in a shop was early covid. a dead mall off 
the mountain highway. a man with shaky hands 
buzzed the sizes & used his little brush 
to sweep my neck. i stared at the blue barbicide 
soaking his tools. he wore his mask over his mouth
but below his nose. i took to cutting my own hair
in the bathroom mirrors & then one day 
i just couldn't do it anymore. my whole body
was screaming. i was ancient or i was new.
i shaved my head down to the scalp. i filmed it
but i don't have the video anymore. piles of hair.
even with an undercut i had so much more
than i thought i did. after i still
i had all these hair ties & nothing to do with them. 
stretching them. putting them on my wrist. 
i didn't grieve the hair. i felt more adult than
i had ever before. apartment. car payment. 
shaved down to the root. the snowplow
pushing all our breath to the river. my partner jokes
that i should put my hair in pigtails. 
i do once in the bathroom mirror & i want
to weep. i feel like i'm maybe ten. ten was 
the last time i think things were maybe not so bad.
not so loud & hurried. come on come & grow
something you will lose. i brush my hair slow.
the front pieces run astray but i can pull it back.
i am going to ask someone to braid it
& we will sit & gossip as if the world is not
thicker than ever before. as if we are maybe 
in chorus & singing a song we will soon forget. 

the view

i keep asking different family members
if they are going to sell the house.
the aunts' place is the closest thing i have
to a grandparent's home. the magnolia outside 
knows my hands from afternoons 
spent climbing as high as i could. 
in the yard, the weeds i used to help my dad
cut back year after year are back & devouring
the fence. in the living room i keep thinking
the television in on. i stayed there one summer
& every day when i got home from work
they would be watching 'the view.'
i never watched with them. they enjoyed
the most boring tv i can imagine. if it wasn't
the view it was a baseball game or even
baseball game re-runs. the pace in that house
was always slower. as a kid i craved it.
took any chance i could get to visit them,
tailing along with my uncle on summer weekends. 
played the half-dead electric organ
in the living room. turned on an old radio in the attic. 
i keep asking if they are going to sell the house
because i know they are. i don't know
what i am looking for in their responses.
maybe a comforting, "it has to be done"
or a resilient, "we can find a way to keep it."
i am helping my dad empty the place. 
one of the chairs from their kitchen table
now in my living room, orphaned 
from the set. before i left the house, i tried
to turn the tv on. i couldn't figure it out.
the buttons, worn-off or jammed in. 
wished i was there one more time eating dinner
while the tv talked around us. while the aunts,
each in their respective recliners, snacked
on pretzels. drank pepsi & ginger ale. 
i don't manage to get the tv to turn on. 
i ask my dad last, "are you going to sell the house?"
he says, "we have to." goes into the details.
how uncle john owns a slice & then him
& then his brother. i don't respond. i just keep working.
imagine the house in sections. if we could
keep nothing else, maybe just the rec room. 

assembly required 

i have been reading up
on how to become a ghost.
i think i was made to stay
past my welcome in a house
no longer my own. i was born
in the united states which means
i was fed a sick promise 
that everything should arrive to us whole. 
someone else can fuss with the pieces. 
when i get ikea furniture, i throw out
the instructions & call my father.
he parks his spaceship on the roof
& we both build something
i did not want. my favorite desk was 
an accident. not meant to be
so tall & narrow. i have been trying
to resist this place by honoring
fragments or something. as a child i sucked 
on wild onions. fresh from the ground.
each a little planet full of screaming
desires. i have never managed 
to develop patience. instead, 
i eat the grapes now. i turn on 
the oven & climb inside. a little
poetic heritage. golden in the heat.
golden in the night. i have managed 
to learn once in awhile. this house 
with its holes in the walls & spider roof.
hammer & hammer. the wires
in my parents' upstairs that throb 
when we are too eager to stay 
in the light. i picture a garden
of screws. a forest of forest. i do not want
to see pieces where there are none. 
when i'm feeling really awful i drive
the my childhood cvs. an old woman in town
told me, "that used to be swamp."
i like to stand in the parking lot
& picture it. an instruction manual
comes in the mail without the materials.
i do not follow it. who knows 
what it was for. if it was from god,
it was best that i disposed of it.
i have no interest in the divine.
i want to love here & now &
without any words to live by. 

just the clothes 

a trash bag doesn't hold as much
as you think it will. in my aunts' house
we try to manage just the clothes today.
there is never just clothes. my brother,
my father, and me flit between rooms. 
us, with the task of emptying the place. 
she was the last of her three sisters, our aunts.
they are technically my great aunts
but i think there are too many qualifiers 
in family words. they tended me & that's all
i need you to know. there is so much physical stuff 
that none of us know how & where to go.
i keep saying, "just the clothes" as if maybe
that could ground our wandering. handfuls
of stale mints. burst batteries in dead machines.
my father is searching for the deed to the house.
instead, he finds bank statements & her birth certificate. 
our aunt's tiny footprints as shadows on the softened paper. 
i become the only one harvesting clothes.
something about oldest not-daughters. 
on the railings is the last load of laundry our aunt did herself. 
nightrobes, stained in strange & fresh ways. 
i feel as if i've done something wrong when
i take them down & let another trash bag
devour them. i want to put them back. a gesture
towards return. when we were small & the house was 
clean & nested in. our footfalls are muffled by
the thick carpets. i pull trash bag after trash bag. 
so many clothes. my father says, "i don't want
to throw her life away." i think of her 
ten or so years ago. her peach pink lipstick
& permed hair. i don't know what she'd say
to us here like this. i try to conjure an answer. 
permission. but if i'm being honest, i think 
she would be the stubborn one. not like her sisters
who i think would throw away half the house eagerly.
i could imagine her saying, "not yet, not yet" 
to everything. i feel the same way. i make a pact
with her that i will keep more than we should. 
we do not finish packaged the clothes. 
the house is spring-cool. before we go 
we stand in the yard. the pear tree, smaller
than i remember it. the magnolia 
getting ready to bloom. i promise my dad,
"i'll come back with you until it's done." 

charcoal artist 

the dog's vision is contagious.
soon i am only seeing grey world
& it is better that way. once, in college
a charcoal artist came into
my bedroom & sketched me
without any bones. i don't remember
if he was a friend or a stranger.
i was popular on my hall because i had
an air conditioner. i get a clothesline
& hang up my skin. there is 
a flyer in our town for a missing dog.
these always activate my savior complex.
i drive around for hours looking,
as if i might be the one to find the creature.
i get the whole montage going in my head.
finding the animal. coaxing him from
behind a bush. driving him to his owner.
the praise. who doesn't just
want to be praised? i sometimes find
a missing sign with my face on it.
i tear them down & eat them whole.
upstairs we have a set of charcoals. 
sometimes i will take a piece out & draw
my grief. great spirals & a burning bush. 
my lover once painted my legs in full color.
all the purples & reds & yellows. bruises
& scrapes. i wanted to see them in charcoal. 
i too am the offspring of fires. the ships
that crashed & the parchment animals 
going skinless in the dark. there are lost dogs 
standing on the roof one morning.
i tell them to wait until i can find someone
to help. there is no one to help. in a town
of mailboxes & portraits there is 
no one to help. i sketch the dog from
the missing sign. the rain comes. turns
paper into pulp. washes out the image
until there is only black & white & blur. 

wallpaper maker's lover

i know it is selfish but i look for myself
in the designs. the great scroll unspooling
from the wrack. he wipes his palms
on his apron. runs a hand through
his hair. the sun enters barefoot
in the spring. i tell no one that i come
to watch him. sit in the crooked chair
while he repeats the same symbols 
over & over. arabesque & apple. they always
look like bodies to me. our bodies.
a bent knee. his curly hair. he has never
seen my home. how could he? it is small.
a rented room. how could i explain
bringing another man quietly into 
my darkness? instead, we have this place.
his workshop. the repetition of our lives 
is like that of the wallpaper. never quite 
perfect. a faded arm. an off-kilter print.
the ink stains. we have to meet before 
his workers arrive. the apprentices & 
the laborers. their aprons, just like his. 
once, a boy came too early, found 
the workshop door locked. i had never seen
him so fearful. we redressed, his face
still flushed. he whispered, "pretend
you are eyeing the designs." i understood.
he wanted me to act as if i were
a customer. i did not need to pretend
my desires. i dream often of 
my lover & i re-doing the wallpaper 
of my room. him smoothing down 
the edges of a fresh design. the wallpaper
in my room is horrible. dull. not made
by hands like his. he has asked me before
if i would like to be his apprentice. 
it would after all give us more excuses
to be behind doors together. i have always
turned him down though. i don't want
to ruin the magic of it. how he can spin 
an image over & over. cloak rooms
in his brilliant mirages. instead,
i will keep searching for myself in them. 
my back arched. his hand on my hip. 

to those who are no longer animal 

i just want the wild to be real.
for everyone to react to the horrors
as we were meant to, with wailing
& pots & pans & fire. instead,
i am just one video game prophet.
sometimes the government knows
my name & sometimes it doesn't.
i take pictures of our house. i take pictures
of our eyes. i want evidence
in case. in case in case. everything is coming
but no one knows when. there is
a new terror in the laboratory. they make
guns. they make promises. i fill 
my car with gasoline & the dinosaurs 
scream. they say, "what is a tower?"
i want to talk to someone at the end.
someone on another side. i do the ouija stuff.
i do mirror talking. they tell me
that there is only one way through 
this kind of ending but they do not 
tell me what that one way is. i pull
my red wagon with me when i go out
to the freshly tilled field where
the stars go to dance this time of year.
i ask them to gather around me. 
i want to show them how to scream. i just
need someone else to do it with me.
i need to lose my mind in a crowd of light.
i beg them, "how do i remain an animal?"
they inform me, "you do not."
we scream like only the rocks know how.
break the glass case of the sky. 
pick up the shards. i ask them if they
will help me knock on doors. i am imagining
our whole town screaming. i want that
so badly. the stars tell me that is not
their role. they climb up back into the sky.
voices soft & far away. across the road
my neighbor lets his dog
out back. did he hear the stars?
he must have. he must. 

potato 

they buy islands like sheet cakes.
write their names in sugar. 
live inside beautiful boxes
full of more beautiful boxes. 
in the kitchen we too are keepers
of boxes. cereal & soap & teeth. 
the story of humans is
the story of vessels. how much you have
& how you hold it. i open a box of 
dried potatoes. the flakes are soft like fresh snow.
i remember as a child eating a dry
mashed potato packet with my tongue. 
salty bites sticking to the roof
of my mouth. 
it was summer & the microwave 
had broken. my brother & i decided to forage.
dipped lemons in sugar as a snack. went outside
barefoot in the warm grass. somewhere
they sleep in rooms of potatoes.
potato beds & potato children.
i think more about rich people
than i would like to. i see their videos
online. their houses. their hunger
despite of all the potatoes. their summers,
endless. their children, in little boxes.
from the food pantry we get packets
of mashed potatoes. i open one to smell it.
somewhere a man is worshipping 
a fork. somewhere his teeth are bells. 
at least i am no longer jealous of them.
i see mansions & i think of them full
of mashed potatoes. all of us there 
eating from their boxes. sitting in
their boxes. laughing in their boxes. 
potatoes growing from their trees. potatoes
soft & warm. the microwave humming
like a new mother. the islands,
made of mashed potatoes, slipping back
into the ocean's brine. the thing about 
a container is that it is not eternal. 
just a small attempt to own
that which cannot be owned. again,
i eat the dried potatoes but this time 
with a spoon in the dull morning light. 
soon it will be summer. 
someday we will all be full. 

the male loneliness epidemic 

my uncle knows the opening & closing times
of every bar from here to the moon.
he recites them like bible verses 
to an empty car window in the march dark. 
once, when i was small. once when
i still talked to him, we were driving 
& he told me a story of him & his friend
drinking bottomless coffee until
their hands were shaking. they had to see how much
they could down. i asked him where 
the friend was now & he laughed. there are
eyes that open in his ceiling. he presses his thumb
to the lids to shut them. there was a girl he 
painted a mural with back when we still lived
by the railroad tracks & the old autobody factory. 
she turned into a hydrangea all blue 
& purple. sometimes i want to save him. 
i remember days in the summer when we would
go the big mall to get shiny in that light.
he builds fires just to put them out. sometimes
drains the amber guts of every bottle
he can find. then, sometimes, pours them
into the ragged grass beneath the backyard 
spruce tree where all the goldfish are buried. 
there were times in my life when i told friends
he was my second dad. now he is like
a birthday balloon on the ceiling. he buys
a treadmill. decides to eat only steak
until he is real again. flesh inside flesh. 
the blow-up mattress. the must of his doors. 
he keeps the same bright green irish spring soap
as he always did. watches horrible men
on a shrinking screen. i regret not loving him 
harder. i know it is not my fault that 
he worships furious idols. i know it is not my fault
that he walked home across the winding
cornfield roads in search of our house 
when he crashed his car into an angel. 
sometimes an old fragment will surface.
his teeth, crooked as mine. he goes 
almost everywhere alone. gender is all about
whether or not you stay. he has always left.
bottle caps like fish scales. he stays gill-less. 
never reaches the hungry boiled moon. 

yearbook

the face is a television traveler.
candid kind of mirror in
the school yard where they cut down
the tree & turned her into hair.
a goldfish hovers above my bed.
i follow her all the way to the creek.
we are thumbs in the making.
there is a computer lab with
text boxes to sleep in. my school picture
blooms like ink bloated by water.
a backpack in the sink. out the window
are girls trying to get rid of their genders.
broad daylight. legless as ever. 
when i get there i am swimming.
jujubees & lime soda. bruises 
on my knees from asking the ground
to give us onions. my hair, like
onion tassels. i try to teacher myself
but the dark of a classroom eats
the sentence. i forget a jacket. 
do a bad stuff get pinned to the brick wall.
everything in a bin of bouncy balls.
we still have the museum. full color. 
i used to think if i had enough signatures
that that meant i was real. no one knew
what to write to me. i faked signatures
sometimes for friends i wished i had.
a fever nurse place. teeth like cars 
in a line. the snow, finally coming
like flyleaf. the ghost of the old tree
laughing with the gym jungle. 
i lick my finger & wipe a smudge 
from the corner of my soft mouth
in his zoo box picture.