street lamp

that night i planted my peach pits
in the parking lot outside your house.
the moon was over-baked
& i wore gloves i'd cut the fingers off of.
only two weeks left until winter break
i was spending my time loving you
& lighting matches just to watch
something consumed by fire. 
in your bed we'd watched 
bird cage, the robin williams movie. 
i'd never seen it & i found myself craving
a life above a neon dream. mostly,
i lived out of my car but you didn't know that.
instead, i was just another trans boy
with a soft voice & ill-fitting men's jeans. 
we ate caramel corn. you rested your head
on my shoulder. there is a kind of intimacy 
specific for trans people who have
only recently gotten to share
who they are. us, like two birds
whispering to one another 
about what migration is & the purposes
of a feather. re-learning how to breathe.
your deadname was still scratched 
on the drawer of your dresser
& i pretended not to see it. mine was
on all my credit cards & ids. 
it felt like living a beautiful secret life 
to be real in holy lamp light.
i always liked to stay in your parking lot
a few minutes after we said goodbye.
i think it was a desire for the night
to not carry me back alone again.
or else maybe i was bathing
in your neighborhood's glow.
tell me, friend, is there a peach tree
there now? i know it was winter
when i planted the pits. i know
the night was cold but i want to believe
something took root. if not,
then lie to me. tell me it fruits strangely 
in the first weeks of december
& that it tastes like caramel popcorn.

video of a god unboxing the sun

dear worms, this is what
i've been waiting all this time for.
i have been eating only 
my own hair. talking
to the stones & listening to the shapes
their words make in my mouth.
you are not a species yet
but i have always known you.
to be a god is to have a language
only you speak. to turn to the darkness
& have the darkness disperse.
come back, come back, i always plead. 
i have believed in dawn. the thought that
a light might bud & tell all the writhing,
"i am sorry for what i did to you
yesterday." or else maybe not 
an apology but a limb of sugar.
do not think of how the roots
refused their water or how 
another being turned into a pillar
of salt. instead, feel this. a yolk.
a table-top butter. i am always 
getting ahead of my self. alone, 
i talk until there are
enough of me to fill a universe. 
the wrapping paper petals away
like onion skins. the glow
turns my face into an apple pie.
i want to devour it. i want to 
hang it around my neck 
& run as far as i can. instead,
i know that it belongs
where it can grow bones. 
my voice fracturing into organisms.
i can see it all & yet now 
this little burning is all mine. 
greedy as i am, i take a thumb's worth
of sweet star & place it beneath
my tongue. a plum. light & creamy.
i feel millennia as its wings beat 
in my throat. 

nothing happened here in 1875

there is a house in town
with a plaque that proclaims
"nothing happened here."
i wish i had a t-shirt that said this same lie. 
don't we all want to be
the first planet? get to claim
our lineage like plucking rocks
from the shore? instead, the sign
instantly makes me suspicious.
i think "what is this house up to?"
who was a lover in the attic? whose bodies
are entombed in the crawl space?
nothing is the word 
of gods. a place where maybe
once they ate a secret fruit
that they decided none of us 
get to taste. before & before.
i want to knock on the door & say,
"tell me the secret. tell me exactly
what you want me to ask 
& i'll ask it." if someone did this to me
i might first say that i never wanted
to be known like this. like a denial.
i might show a scar or a bruise. 
i might turn into a chicken 
& eat the wild leftovers of
my grandmother's rot. i would definitely 
invite my visitor inside
& ask them "where does
nothing take you?" when the world
is too heavy & sharp i just pop out 
the drain & my mind goes into 
a big blue drink. goodbye blood.
goodbye bones, hello waterfall
& licorice. i search in books 
& online for an answer to 
what happened at the house.
i find none. this is after all where most
stories exist. waiting to be invited
into the emptied room of tongues.
when i first read the sign,
i read it wrong as "what happened
to you in 1875?" i think of a man's voice
as we end a date during the first week
i lived in the city. he asked 
the same, "what happened 
to you?" i did not think he would
understand me & maybe i was assuming
too much of him. i said, "nothing." 

dog in space

have you ever been sent
on a no-return mission?
the first living creature in space
was a dog.
she was found on the streets of moscow.
what did she eat in the plum shadows
cast by men bent
on tossing her bones?
i hope it was delicious.
i have gotten on my knees 
before a vessel & thought
"this will take me to god."
a tin can car. an airplane
to tennessee. that dog's name
was laika. did she 
respond to it or was it 
a fresh & strange sound in the mouths
of tall creatures? i want to make
the void proud on most days.
i want my wings to be packing peanuts
& icicles. i want a view
of the stomach of the universe.
to eat heartily & call home 
& say, "i have money now."
sometimes you can convince 
yourself you are a hero. in a way
aren't we all little gods?
that's of course what they want
you to think. that you are 
going out into the sea of chins
& though you will not emerge,
you will bring back evidence.
evidence of what?
laika died a few hours
into flight. she was alone in 
space's deep pupil. the world blinked
& she was gone. the streets
she ran down in search of food.
i will ask again
have you ever been told 
you are brave for living through
what they've done to you?
i trace the journeys his hands took
around my neck. i sing to a paper plane 
until its wings start to beat.
did she know where she was?
did the end come quick? i ask 
even though i know it never does.
there is the moment
when you say to yourself,
"they wanted my breath
& said they loved me." 

how to wear a mask

sometimes i customer-service voice myself
through a whole day. all the little telephones
growing like daffodils. i talk for hours
just to realize i haven't told a single truth.
have you ever looked at your hands & seen 
fire hydrants? a ghost cracks his knuckles.
let's get down to business. first, i would 
dip my bones one by one in chocolate. the rich
& beautiful kind. i spare no expense in my mask.
it's got to have feathers & gold. it's got
to make everyone think you are not 
a burning staircase. sit outside & think of
stock photos. think of women without 
doorways or living rooms. when you get
right down it there is no rope to climb.
there is no microwave to talk to. just a series
of zippers. here is the seal. here is the selkie.
here is the dream in which we are both 
talking our tongue languages. they will love
the chocolate. they will say, "you are so purple."
delightful & delicious. a paper plate to sleep on.
we are afforded so little chaos. i want
a feast of all my fury. no more pilots.
tell the planes "you are geese now."
i am re-learning how to walk with a face. i am
promising too much of every animal i see.
"i will love you," i tell a rabbit. "i love you,"
i tell a drawer of spoons. i just want to 
say what i mean but i don't know 
what i mean anymore. there is the distance
always between the self & the mediation.
let's not be idealistic. there is not one mask
but a bouquet. my finest work. where the salamanders
go to feel warm & ready. if you ever want
to meet me, you must come at night.
i will be eating egg shells by the crock pot sun. 

we burry the ocean

you might ask what calls for such
a drastic motion. i will tell you 
sometimes even the whales need
to keep a hold of their secrets.
haven't you ever destroyed something
to save it? this is what i did with 
the color blue. i carried it swaddled 
& close to my chest until i found a place
no one else could reach. the trees
had tongues & the birds spoke 
in the language of stones. there i let
the blue go & it thanked me. 
we started with just our hands. 
dirt into waves & water.
the whales swam into our wrinkles.
eels in under our tongues. we said,
"go to sleep." sometimes when i was too 
depressed to move i would sleep
& it would feel like slipping into 
the ocean. i'd wake up under water
with gills pleated like a ruffled skirt.
all the ways we preserve the softest fragments
of our selves. the ocean, oh the dear ocean.
how, on some nights, you fit into 
a drinking glass & others you lived
vibrant in my whole house. drowned me
again & again & asked, "are you new yet?"
when you live beneath the soil
just hold your breath. just remember
when the sun was a child. then, decades
from now, when it is safe, i promise
i will send everyone i know to dig.
they will not believe me at first.
they will say, "the ocean died 
along with my girlhood." but, 
we will dig & the waves will crash 
& we will laugh until our faces fall apart
as marbles. 

gold

in the town of my silver teeth
a train arrives at midnight full
of the coal miners
who once dug each day 
in the mountain's throat
for fire rocks. i am a fire rock
or else i am the mine or else
i am their hands. the hunger
that flames have for memory.
they ask "where were we human?"
lately i have been craving 
that loneliness. how on any given afternoon
i could decide to blow my heart up
like a balloon & dangle it on a string
above the lehigh river. 
the coal miners would work 
& ask, "would you like to join us?"
i always explained, "i am a poet
which means i am a witness." 
still, there were days i kneeled.
wielded the pix axe & cut my knuckles
on black rock. where should we go
when we have no more finger prints?
my favorite part of that year
living alone in the mountains 
was the afternoon. it arrive with nothing
at all in its mouth. i found 
so many bones. the night was 
painful though. waiting again
for the miners & the train. 
feeling the ghosts stir around me
& wondering if i was one of them.
wondering even deeper then
if i wanted to be 
one of them. then at least
i would have a vocation.
they know to come to the mountain
& the mountain aches 
to be undone by them in the way
we come to crave our own unraveling. 
i lost so many bones. boredom 
& wayward loves & plucked eye lashes.
some of them still 
at the bottom of the river.
headlight of the great steam engine 
rippling like a drowned moon
in the water. 

centipede / millipede 

i collect legs. to run.
to row the boat. to smash holes
in the doors of gutless bathrooms.
once, i found a leg in the river.
it belonged to a racing horse. 
legs in the basement collecting dust
from lack of use. legs in the pantry
to feast on when the running
has turned me into pie.
i do not think i could ever 
have enough legs. legs are always
folding. knees that turn into bottle caps.
here is my shaken heart. my escape hatch self.
i do not need a getaway car.
i just need you to pick up the phone
next time i call. i just need you
to love me like you did when we were
on our harvest together, plucking legs
from the bushes & legs from 
the dumpsters. people will get rid of 
perfectly nice legs but sometimes i worry
i will be walking & someone will start chasing me,
saying, "those are mine." do you remember
how i held still for you? i was a toad
in the middle of the headlight street.
you told me to extend out my thigh
& so i did. you caressed & found the seam.
you said, "i would love this." i said,
"please take it, i have so many."
that is not true. i do not have
so many. i had enough to last the night
or maybe less. i go through legs like popcorn.
you ran around the house with them
until they were useless. then & only then
did you return them to me. 
& dear god, i thanked you. 

free sofa

come & take my body 
from the side of the road.
i'm not interested in a temporary affair.
i want to become part of your basement.
where you come & lay your form 
when the world has too many telephones.
do you remember when you 
called the hotline & read the backs
of cereal boxes until you found the words
to say, "this is not my mouth."
hung up & walked across town to 
the lookout over the highway.
all the cars on their way to big sugary places.
you have springs in your gut too.
you have a story about a buried
time capsule which you do not remember
the contents of. that is me. i am your
time capsule. all the memories 
of being full exist in my springs. 
we can be someone else's "little party." 
someone else's root beer stain. 
we could be storytellers. we could be
video game lights. i might sound desperate here
but that is because tomorrow
when the rain comes i will become
a different almost. the way when 
a tree falls it is no longer a tree
to most people. i smell like fingers 
& the word "please." all day i count
the cars. each a little breath i could hold.
trust me when i tell you i will ask
for nothing from you. 
tell me everything that aches.
if you take me,
i will be everything need. 

i have a crush on a boy in a tiny house on the hill 

he is not a real boy
in the same way
that i am
no a real boy.
no i don't mean
because i'm trans i mean because
i was born 
in a stained glass window
& god choked 
on a turkey bone
while he was making 
my feet. 
i do not know 
how to run from
the sound 
of sirens. instead
that's just how
the flowers sound to me.
i do believe
i will ever meet the boy.
the hill is the size
of a sleeping giant.
i sometimes will
send carrier pigeons up there
with little blank scrolls.
can a poem be 
an absence?
where words could live?
you might ask
how i have a crush
on a boy i've never seen
but i think that is 
exactly what desire is.
the tangible absence.
besides, i did 
see him once. 
he walked out 
onto the porch. he chopped down
a tree which was also his father.
we could run away 
together. we could
build the cloud city.
eat plums from each other's 
throats. i think he plays
an instrument. 
a lute maybe or a mandolin.
i listen closely
on days like this 
when the window is 
a drinking glass. 
my thirst becomes
a sixth ocean.
i build a boat & wait.
he is not coming
or else i am not coming to him.
the hill is a thumb.
is a burial mound.
i think the boy is 
eating fruit without me. i think
it is overripe. i think
it drips nectar 
across his hands.