hypochondriac 

did you know you can die of flowers?
they grow in your throat
& then you are 
the wrong kind of boy.
do i have "catastrophic" written
in my blood vessels?
i want to be tested for angels.
they have named diseases 
after our hopes & fantasies 
how am i supposed to walk around
& not wonder about 
the kinds of fires that might
be stoked by my hunger?
i go to a clinic where i am sure 
i am dead. they assure me i am not dead
even though all the other clients
are ghosts. they say,
"we need to rule out
all other possibilities."
i pour my blood into a chalice.
i spit onto a pocket knife.
the doctors excavate my purple
& determine it is specifically 
mauve. i knew it. i knew it
when i was awake at night,
heart as a bullfrog. i chased 
the organ down the hall.
they determine 
after everything
that i am making it up.
my arm falls off & becomes 
an infant. they say, 
"that can happen
to people like you."
i no longer want a cure. i just want
to be seen. i want a god
to come down & say
"your pain is so clear
it is made of glass." when the flowers come
i welcome them. violets 
& lilacs. first from the roof
of my mouth
& then from between my teeth. 

waiting room

some days i find a doctor
in my mailbox & he is promising
to make me into a bird.
i rehearse the prophecy,
"i have not slept for twenty-eight years."
count my fingers to remind myself
i still have something to grasp 
a bell with. on the television
there is always a man saying
more than he should. a tongue 
as a salamander. i overturn rocks
in the yard looking for prescriptions.
all my pill grow legs & live as beetles.
in the kitchen this morning 
i got on my knees 
to catch just one. a magazine
promises that everyone can be 
as thin as a lollipop leg.
white women with white teeth
& white shirts. i try to imagine
a life here. setting up a tent 
in the waiting room. starting
a fire. roasting ears of corn 
& feasting right in front
of the receptionist. instead
i cross my legs & my arms. 
try to pass the time by counting
angels i see falling out 
the one big window overlooking
a swampy field. when they come
the nurse is not a nurse
but a heron. i'm instantly comforted.
she's holding a blue balloon
which is another relief.
a red balloon is always a bad sign.
i almost don't want
to follow her, i've made 
such a little nest in this thicket.
the magazines become moths.
even the man on the television
stops talking. he scowls 
& waits for me to get up & follow her. 

squirrel meat 

don't tell me you're not a carnivore.
i saw you with a disaster 
in your mouth crawling
up the ankle of a fresh god.
sometimes i will go to the market
just to see my insides.
me, the cow walking towards
the bolt. do you know that's how
they do it? an axis through 
the brain? the earth itself
is the skull of a devoured calf. 
two-hearted beasts in their caverns.
i was once a survival. i crouched
in the throat of a mammoth.
the creature told me 
"if you hold still we will
find ourselves in a museum."
my people have fingers that turn
into birds. my people have
shake the walruses for their manna.
i will tell the truth. the squirrels
taste like gold. they are full
of coins & televisions.
who knew so much could fit
inside such a tiny body.
i say, "you know we 
are animals?" & the room 
runs away from itself. i saw
a tree of eyes. "oftentimes"
is my favorite crutch word 
to get me to say something
that is always true. there is 
always meat. i went strawberry picking
& found each fruit beating
like heart. blood on my fingers.
the squirrels, like messengers,
delivering a gospel of seeds.   

stage slap

the trick to making a slap look real
is the sound. we want flesh 
crashing flesh. the spot lights
always turned me into a ballerina
without feet. i tried to live
off pin cushions & flowers. i was always
fighting my hair. trying to put it up
but then it would go & turn into rodents:
ferrets especially but sometimes
a flock of mice. have you ever seen swarm?
i have & when there's a hoard 
of heartbeats all you can do 
is stand back. i practiced by 
destroying telephone poles
& sometimes men in dad clothes.
tuned the sound to be perfect.
a girl in an alley way. a girl 
on a fire escape. a girl in a blender.
"what is she going on about?"
taking the old teeth out
one by one & replacing them
with match box cars. don't get me wrong
i prefer the real thing. i like
my gender to be red & throbbing
from impact. we must make do.
we have to show them 
what they came to see which is
a binary of slapped vs. not. 
we have to convince them we've
been hit. crumpled like a tissue.
i wipe the nose of gods. they always ask
too many questions. "did you feel it?"
the answer of course being yes.
i always feel it. choreographed or not. 

smoked gouda 

my grandmother boiled milk
to drink before bed.
had hands like tree roots. 
cream in the fridge. her cat who 
at night convened with angels.
i only stayed over once. the hauntings 
smelled like chicken & newspapers.
sitting on the end of her bed
she sung to the dark without any teeth.
the tongue she kept in a jar. 
in the afternoon she took out
a wedge of smoked gouda. 
sunlight through her apartment window.
we ate one small piece at a time
like little mice in a room
too big for us. i know so little about
my elders. she took her eyes out
when we she was done & washed them 
in the sink. the radio as divination.
it talked in the voice of her husband,
a man without any bones at all.
i loved the cheese. had never had something
so rich & tasting of fire wood.
when left alone i snuck into the fridge
& nibbled right off the wedge.
salt & sweet. chewing. me, her 
little animal. a child in the thicket
of a heritage. we listened to opera 
& i pretended to like it for her.
i still wonder what she thought
when she went to take out the cheese later
& found my sneaky bites. did she curse me?
did she laugh? did she cut one straight line
to make the piece even? 

the last time

you were piloting the space ship 
without any eyes. 
my empty greek yogurt container
full of fingers. i put on a pair
to love you with. it was a night
in august. everything was indigo. 
even the street lamps. every restaurant 
we tried to eat at was dead or gutted
& in their place stood dollar stores.
we ended up in a gas station parking lot.
you asked if i ever devoured
a pigeon. i admitted, "yes, once."
even though i had much more times 
than that. i had imagined for months
that our lives would roll 
into one big pink ball of yarn.
that i might wake up every day
& find you on the ceiling, standing
with a knife in your mouth. 
we ended up just getting honey buns.
fingers sticky. washed our hands 
with air out the window. there was
no where to go & nothing to do.
just sirens & rhinos in the streets.
they greased the street lamps
with butter to keep any crowds 
grounded to earth. you tried to show me
how you could fly. wings stretched.
duck feathers. you couldn't 
get off the ground. you said
over & over, "i have done this
so many times." they way our futures 
fail us when someone is watching. 
i kept your camera. the one you left
on my nightstand. the following week
i took a train to a new ice cream city.
i always promised i would write to you.
your address rung church bells 
where it was folded on my desk.
i never did but i do still think of you
when the summer is full of holes.
bleeding beams of light. 

carnival glass

there are not enough bells.
i go down to the mystery face
of the old garden just to pluck eye lashes.
my art gets good 
when my life starts wearing cowboy boots.
that is to say, things are not good.
i resist the urge to throw a parade
in honor of my sadness. instead,
i go out in the raining yard 
& try to talk to the dead frog 
i found on the road. he is already 
doing much better now that he's dead.
he has a carousel. he has glasses
that show him only yellow things.
yellow is generally a safe color
unless of course it has to do with 
school buses. i pop out my eyes 
& wash them in grape juice. it stings
at first but then i can see a vineyard of eyes.
everyone's stares collected
in a hillside blaring "take on me."
i would never want to end up 
in a music video. my mouth moves
to glass lyrics. at the mercantile
we become goblins. i ask if you will
look at my face through a vase.
my face is turned into a ferris wheel.
i can't tell if it's an improvement.
don't be afraid of heights. they are just
where angel larvae are hatched.
my conclusion is that we should move again.
we should put our life into vessels. we should
grow wings (the bird kind
not the insect kind) & fly 
into the mountains made
of boots. not boot straps boots though.
i mean heeled beautiful boots. 

van life

get out of capsule or in it.
this is not a place for squirrel skulls
or even really a gameboy. 
we are picking still lifes 
out of our teeth. i had a mother 
but she was too dedicated to victory.
once, in the middle of the night
we woke to the sound of coyotes.
they were rattling tin cans 
& summoning the devil again.
i mark a dotted line where
i want to cut the countryside.
this is mine. this is also mine.
picking flowers & naming them
after past lovers: aiden, kallie,
noah, jason. no longer a hibiscus morning.
i lay on my back & float 
in a chasing blue. not enough rest stops.
not enough rest. can you become 
a pilot of your own dead chicken?
i don't know anymore. sometimes
you have to follow the nothing
until it becomes a heart. fill that heart
with aquarium pebbles & pretend
that you breathe water. 
i took my home & pressed it
into the center of my palm. 
when we run out of water, we'll follow
the birds back to the river where
they take off their feathers 
& turn back into our girlhoods. 
you braid my hair & then you are
just a ghost. the hitchhiker with 
the spider for a hand. dear god
where are we going? i throw
a fishing line out the window
& catch a whale. 

ground bees

there are not enough places to hide.
i walk around with a trowel
& a gun. the gun is full
of goat eyes. all night i am screaming
into a plastic bag. a hole in the bottom
means that the mosquitos can slip out
& drink as much as they want.
i tell you i need a delicata squash
& you are busy in a digital lavender field.
no one is going to remember 
who is the vampire & who is the vampire catcher.
i keep inventing futures 
where there are no open spaces,
only cracks i can pour my face into.
a pill bug arrives on the porch every morning
to deliver a prophecy. too bad i don't know
what he's saying. we once ate a skull together
while sitting over a mountain river.
you said, "this tastes like honey."
the sky bleeds & i try to stich it shut.
you smile at me sometimes like
i'm a dime. i can be okay 
with being a dime. the little face 
of a false god. if i had a place to go
i would stay there for centuries. i would
watch time turn & then, when it was all over
i would walk out & etch the credits 
into sand. look, here is who made 
the sunroof & here is who first
spoke softly enough to the corn 
for it to turn white & purple. 
the bees are writing the history of the world
in their secret bus stations. 
i wish only to join them. 
 

shower curtain 

i once saw my dad strangle a cloud.
white knuckles. rage.
he was on the roof. he was 
the size of a pill bottle
from where i stood in the yard. 
he didn't know i could see him.
today my mom says,
"you're just like him"
& all i can see is rain. rain 
with dead birds in it & rain
that turns copper on the ground. 
rain mistaken for blood. our bodies
are made up of mostly water.
i spend most days now as a cloud.
my father's hands could be 
very gentle. then, so strong.
i pressed down the strings 
on the neck of his guitar. 
singing, i used to wish i was 
a guitar so my father might
carry me into the church.
i was an outdoor child
in the way there are outdoor cats.
eating pizza crusts. barefoot.
his anger was usually latent.
i learned to be good at sensing it coming.
a thunder syrup & then roar.
trying to catch my breath. 
i remember once trying to fit myself
beneath the bed. i was a little cloud.
i rained billboards & thumb tacs.
tried my best to clean up 
any mess. the clouds outside called 
& said, "come, let's be kin."
so, i did. i climbed out the window
on the second floor. briefly, i flew.