forever or else for good 

you tell me i am a pear tree.
my love i am the rat.
give me enough turtles 
to last this moon. all i want
is to be your metal bowl
of blueberry farewell. before 
i met you i believed i was 
an obelisk. now i know
i am a toothpick in the mouth
of whatever forest births me.
if i would have know 
i would be gutted as a shrimp
we could have skipped the breakfast talk
& the fire tunnel & just been 
your mail men. fingers on a package.
my tongue, a little slug.
let's not pretend you didn't know
i was a ghoul. let's not pretend
neither of us have stop watches.
the pears are full of worms. the worms
are full of songs neither of us
can sing. darling there are ears of corn
in the basement growing where
they shouldn't be able to grow.
i tried to keep the dog alive. i tried
to kill rabbits. i could not.
they stared at me with eyes 
made of blue potatoes & credit cards.
i would give you my teeth 
if it meant being loved again
in the way only brine can love
the body. if you will not make me eternal 
i will do it for myself. i will go
& kiss stones. i will go 
putting bees in my mouth.
let them build whatever comb
they crave. do you want 
to still watch a movie. i replaced
my soul with a television. 

chimney dwelling

when i stay at the house i grew up in
i always sleep in the chimney's throat.
there, dead birds & fire ghosts 
tell me "we saw everything."
mice in the walls. laughter the color
of bruised mountains. what do you do
with your child self to keep it
from kicking? i feed mine jupiter beetles 
& tell it to go & look for crows.
do not worry about the static moon
or the television's glass eye. 
sometimes the chimney is the only place
if can sleep. i will get up in the middle of the night
& start building. cut a hole in the roof
of a stranger's home, saying, "i need
to touch the galaxy." outside stars buzz
like gnats over a carcass. you come & tell me
that you made a video of us. it is playing
in the living room inside a bowl of noodles.
all our friends are quails. 
i tell you, "i do not want to be
a screen door." bolts. blood. the chimney 
howls. the only perfect limb.
tell me i will rise like smoke. tell me 
that you love in a way that won't require me
to hollow my bones. that won't ask 
for a remote control to the dead end.
can you read lips? i'll mouth it to you,
"i am just a plantain in a potter's field."
in the chimney though i am holy. no one even
has to know that i'm there.

dead sister poem

don't look at her
she'll eat your future.
i go to her with a handful
of pomegranate blood.
do you remember how
to turn your fists inside out?
holding her hand & 
making a nursery in 
the catacomb. my gender
used to have antlering pigtails.
would go unseen for days 
& then emerge ravenous.
my biggest secret is
that she is still alive
but only to me. i feed her flies.
i feed her fingernails. i cough up
city lights & ask her 
if she still has the flip phone
full of all the pictures of him.
she clutches it to her chest
tells me i can never look at it
again. how do you protect your pain?
how do you make a shrine to it?
name the fracture. bring it 
licorice & snow cones. 
the phone turns into a clam.
she is a whale. she is a cruise ship. 
i travel alone to another planet.
one where genders are like socks.
darned & knotted. eighteen feet
i use to walk from one side of
the coin to the other. 
she asks, "can i come
to the elevator?" i tell her 
she is not real. she is just 
a place i go.

poem in which everyone is safe in glass

in my dream we break our legs.
we sleep beneath the underpass 
& stand with glow stick teeth. 
i check my bank account like a heart.
is it still there? is it made of muscle?
weeping in the mother closet, i heard
my family saying, "there's nothing left"
over & over. i keep falcon in my wallet.
train them to hunt for hope 
in the ragged post-rain forest.
it can be merciful to kill a spider.
to say, "instead of an animal i will 
make you a metaphor." closed closet door.
syringes in their little hot dog holders.
of all the places to go, i chose the city.
buried my bones there. when they 
dig them up some people will say
they're female & some people will say they're
ghost. kicking the tin can until
it becomes a skull. the only thing
worth living for is transformation.
werewolf night. i take your photographs
& i welcome them into a shadow box.
do you remember when we were
shirtless as the sun? how, through
glass there is always a halo of iridescence. 
goodbye gumball machine. goodbye birds.
the existence of stones suggests the existence
of whales. one is coming & we will
have to find a way to keep it alive.
could i borrow nine lives? could you spare
a handful of ones? i just want
to take a ride to buy french toast
& eat it like a last meal. 

smelter

they had a family day at the factory where,
from a safe distance, the children would watch
as our fathers demonstrated their horrors.
molten lead. glowing orange & crimson.
dead of winter. catered cookies in a pavilion.
one of the other children said, "i want to be
a skeleton when i grow up just like my father."
unprompted in the silence of our walk
from building to building, dad said, "this is a good job." 
when is labor is the process 
of becoming someone else? 
a breeze off the mountain. around the little city,
fields ached like fresh wounds. smells of pig farm winter.
shit & screaming. once, dad told me a story
of a man who fell into a vat of hot lead.
his body caught fire instantly. he was turned into 
only a tongue. then, also, the morning dad found
the body of another man mangled on the side of the road
on the way to work. a motorcycle accident. 
bodies becoming energy. light. fire. bone.
as a child i thought the smelter was a monster.
doors like jaws. it swallowed my father 
every day & every night. other men 
with missing fingers. acid burns. putting
one of the chocolate chip cookies 
from the buffet into my pocket to eat later.
how we find those footprints of sugar.
follow them into each other's ribs. 

fabric store

gut the silk for fish.
in an aisle i wrap myself in future dresses.
have a wedding in the palm of my hand.
let's be brides. let's be firemen.
let's pick out a reem of silk & pretend
we are going to sew a new moon.
sometimes when i slice my finger
ribbons come out. i weave a ceiling.
i use a box cutter to cut out a hole
for my face. we would go to the fabric shop
over the bridge when i was a girl.
i craved the sound of sliced fabric. 
pleating. zipper. i sewed zippers into my skin.
my wrists & my thighs. opened them up
like pencil cases to keep my marbles.
road my bike until the tires were tear ducts.
when you make your clothes you make
your burials. remember me like a pirate.
remember me in a leopard print gown.
folding the future like a bed sheet.
i would ride home with my future measured
by the yard. gravel road. the sun like
a shoe fly pie. at home, my sewing machine 
perched. my little owl. barns in my eyes.
i put down the presser foot. unzipped my flesh
to find pin cushions & pearls. began tracing
the outline of the new body i wanted to sew.
frankenstein's monster of midnight fabric. 
geese out to window cut swatches 
from the sky like pairs of silver scissors. 

gargoyle farm

where did you plant your terror?
i walked until i found a field of snow.
used the hand shovel & dug. watched
my hands turn to stone & fall off.
became paperweights. the soul 
is a flag tied outside the door of the body.
waves in the violin air. when the gargoyles grow
i make it a point to look into their faces.
try to change rock. press thumbs 
into their eyes. grimaces & frowns.
i tell them, "we are happy in this life."
they do not budge. this is why the field
had to be so far away. i knew i would be
ashamed of what grew. i want to be
a spirit without any doubts. i crave 
community willing to go & tell the eels,
"we need a circus." i am hungry for
an ocean full of shoulders. whirlpools
we use to feed our hard candies. 
instead, i am here with the weight 
of all the rooves. drinking rainwater.
screaming into a wrenched-open pomegranate. 
somedays i believe everything 
is school bus flavor. we are not getting out.
i dress the gargoyles in knit hats 
to make them feel more whimsical. 
call a friend on my cell phone
& when they ask where i am, i am honest
for the first time. i say, "i am in my gargoyle garden."
they ask, "are there any dandelions?"
there are. little yellow promises.
i pick one & eat it. we talk about stomachs 
& what we want to fill ours with.
mice & songbirds & kitchens. 
i kiss each gargoyle goodbye before i leave.
tell them, sweetly, "i will miss you."
they say in response, "we will not miss you." 

t-bone

i fed the stegosaurus everything i had
until i was just a pair of stockings.
the intersection was crowded with protesters 
who had been there so long they
no longer knew what they were protesting for. 
there were so many small fires. there were 
so many televisions & so many dinosaurs 
without time periods to live in.
a common ice breaker is "what other era
would you like to exist?" i usually answer
"the primordial soup." i want to writhe.
i want to wriggle. my head was full of screws
& images of my fathering. he shook me awake.
put his finger to his lips & said,
"i am not real." the stegosaurus is a family member.
we have to take what lineage we can get.
i go into the driver's seat & i don't have my license 
& i don't have a car. the car is a stegosaurus.
the intersection is crowded with geese 
who no longer have a place to fly 
in the winter. my mouth catches on fire.
we put it out with tongue. taping everything
back into place. i told you again,
"we live in a duct tape city." the night came
with crinkling wrapping paper & 
a nutrition label. i was born with my ingredients
written across my shoulders. the car came
from a different time. it had a prehistoric face.
smashed like punching a hole through a wall.
like sudden & viscous anger. broken glass.
calling for help. the animals bones
in the road. protesters asked me, "how did
this happen?" i vibrated. i levitated.
"i don't know. i don't know," i said
before running away from the carnage.
before becoming a full time firework.
a letter in the mail came that said, 
"i'm so disappointed at your lack 
of good citizen." i crumpled it up & ate it. 

the good word

tell me the meaning of worms.
if there is a god he is bored 
& watching television.
licking his fingers of cheese sauce.
sometimes the birds try to evangelize me.
they quote bible verses.
"if your eye sin pluck it out." i replace
my eyes with coriander seeds.
they sting so i try apples which rot 
& fill my head with worms.
"pluck it out." i am so hungry for goodness
that sometimes i read the "good news" website.
a little girl becomes a pilot. a man
eats his weight in teeth. there is a scientist 
who turns tears into fossil fuels.
hope is a thing with no feathers
but tells you "i will be a swan." i do not
want hope. i want a jar of nutella. 
i want a burning police car. instead i'm going
to sew a button onto the back
of my neck. point to it & say,
"if your eye sin against you." a bird finishes
my sentence & says, "turn it into 
something you can sell." i hold a sale.
buy one get one free. i disagree 
so strongly with the birds. i love my hunger.
i love my eyes. i feed them goldfish crackers 
& as much sugar as they want. i watch
a video of a man being hit by the bus
in a compilation of "epic fails." 
he turns into a jug of milk. haven't you ever
become a necessity? i have. 
reached for. written on the list
& handed to a shopping angel. 
do not mistake me for a disciple. 
i just talk to the birds & occasionally 
we will agree on a word. today it is "halo."
everyone wants one but they are sold out.
"can you swipe me one?" i ask a blue jay.
the blue jay grins & replies,
"pluck it out." the presence of the good word
suggests the existence of the terrible word.
that is where i want to live.
where the ground says, "blink"
& our demons eat glazed donuts.
god calls the fire department but it is
too late. the tree is a spent matchstick.
the birds are angels. 

cassette garden or a blue jay elegy 

play me the best version of your chlorine.
in the burial dirt behind the garage 
i planted my father's cassette tapes.
some of them were steel-tongued
& others were of him singing in the choir.
when i say no one believes me i mean
they put their ear to the soil
& hear blue jays. there are no such thing
as blue jays, only the little ice cream scoops 
of real world removed to make space
for the sky. i would burry my hands 
& run to my mother to say, "i don't have
any hands." she would go & look for them
with me even though she knew it was my fault.
is it true that we, as mice, choose 
the color of our eyes in the next life?
eating a rabbit made of chocolate. eating 
a melting bone. i learned how to play them
anywhere. put the tapes in my mouth 
& hear him saying, "come here."
scissors gliding across a ream of fabric.
i peel open. i pretend to be a machine
or else i am a machine. boom box breath.
listening to the beetles & remembering
everything is about capital 'm' men's pain.
not mine. mine is the cassette tape garden
which is also a farewell plot. a tree grew
which bore the saddest pears. i swallowed them all.
i did not want to share. church music.
ave maria. ave maria. green thumb or guiltless.
the garden cracks its back on a folding chair.
they come & find me but do not recognize me.
pull the tape out of my mouth. 
i am not your song. i am your blue jay.