tin fish dinner

here is a video of me when i wasn't hungry.
together we watch the school of fish
as they thrum in my iphone as if they will
never become a bite of salt & olive oil. 
lately, we talk a lot about whether or not
people are good. you watch too much true crime
& i harvest too many inspirational quotes.
once though, when i was sixteen i was alone
in new york city. no one knew where i was 
& i was wearing a blue knit hat & blue lipstick.
a man on the subway stayed with me
until i reached the station. he told me,
"there are more flies than gardens" & i still
have never known what it means. then, of course,
the man who lived above in the mountains.
how, when he made dinner, he would knock
& ask if we were hungry. i was starving. i was 
a single fish remembering what it felt like
to hum in my stewing manhattan august.
i never accepted his food. he smelled like mushrooms
& gasoline. used a walking stick he carved himself.
i am scrolling in the internet's guts
& i start watching videos of tin fish dinners.
a husband & a wife who pry open 
these little gasps of flesh. capers & vinegar.
sun dried tomato. the smallest forks
i've ever seen. we are living in a time of canoes. 
in the kitchen i taste a spoonful of the cabbage 
in gochujang sauce you've made. there are so many kinds
of tin fish dinners. what i loved most about the video
& why i kept returning to it was that
each bite was celebration. i do not want to ever
mistake smallness for emptiness. i don't believe
in good or evil but i do believe in sardines
& anchovies. i believe in the crooked smile
of a tin can. i can measure how far 
the ocean is from us in teeth. 

carry out / carry on

we were eating our portion of the snap pea supply.
cats in the clouds playing their lutes. in the summer
the graveyard was a bed frame. laying down with you
i tried to imagine how we might be possible.
a singular answer always returned in the form of 
stray lighters. we filled our pockets. later, in my next
iteration the same exact scene in which 
outside a restaurant, my mother circled the block
looking for me. i lead a runaway's life. goodbye goodbye.
or else we are just chicken drums. or else i am just
the boy who kisses the bridge before he turns it
into a wrack of ribs. release me from my fork.
release me from my shoe laces. i tie everything 
too tight so they fray quickly. have you ever tried
to relace a disaster? you'll be dizzy & weeping & she
will be asking you, "what do you mean you died?"
we drove home with you still inside a chestnut.
i said, "it hurts when i bite into you." you said,
"well don't bite into me." you don't understand.
i have to lick the plate. i have to walk to the 7/11
& try to feel like a real person. i am told that
if you're extra good in this life there will be laundry machines
in your heaven. if you're like me though, 
you have to walk up the street & kiss someone
who you don't really want to kiss anymore
to be allowed to use a machine. i have spent
too much of my life waiting for water to return.
you point your fork at me. a bird kills another bird
on the roof of our life. "i want to go home," i admit.
you say, "but you haven't finished your snap peas." 

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.