nature nearby 

i use my gps to find gods.
clovers outside with location
written all over their faces.
dropping a pin in your back
& tracking you into the cave's
indigo heart. sometimes i find 
my blood is moldy & rotten.
when that happens i turn to
an ai bot or an algorithm to find
the waterfall's knees.
grocery stores pop up in rivers.
a carton of milk. a stray star.
it says, "you have arrived"
& i sit on the back of a cougar.
large animals feel mythical 
because we turned them neon.
put them into graveyards
we can only reach with a good can opener.
meat & muscle are not enough.
i need a flytrap. i need 
an execution device. i don't like
pretending as if it's all right here.
no, i can see where the nature begins
& i end. it is a story beneath my tongue.
a forest of matches. laying on a decaying tree 
as if i am not also a decaying tree. 
i showed you peasant back 
growing where i should have wings. 
the gps claims 
we are just a few years away 
from singularity when technology
will become nature. the mushrooms say,
"we are already here." i say,
"how many more miles?"
the gps gives me a blue vein to follow.
i walk to a dead end road,
forest vast & aching in front of me.
out from the trees
walks a bobcat. 

turkey meal 

get me out of this sainthood 
i want to be a worm.
i want to crawl on my belly
& eat tear drops from dead boys.
recently i learned everything in dog food:
there's turkey meal 
& tax documents & secret 
tomb ingredients that weren't meant
to be shared with the animals.
at disney world i tried to die.
i fed myself to an animatronic lion.
i am crying in the bathroom
& begging you to help me.
i don't know what i need help with.
there are turkeys whose whole existence
is to feed dogs. the dogs are busy
playing the lottery & barking
at the ugly moon. the moon 
coughs up a slipper. i had been 
looking for that. don't let
the ingredients fool you,
nothing is vegan. there a hand
in there somewhere. i think about leather 
& the process of prying skin from bone
just to wrap yourself.
merry christmas even though
it's september. i don't want
to call home but i should report
that i am still at the bottom of the ocean.
i tell the turkey ghosts,
"we could watch a movie" 
which is my code for,
"i don't know what else to say." 
mostly, an apologize is a trap door
into pity & a crunch wrap supreme
for someone else. unsatisfactory.
unsavory. switch blade
without a home. don't get me
confused with someone 
who knows where he is at all time. 

veal

i want a childhood to fall off the bone. 
in my toy chest i have a rope 
& a fire. i go out to the field
to warn everyone. their dinner plates
buzzing in their guts. like the calves,
i was made to be slaughtered
if not biblically then through the process
of holy machines. there are not enough
bolts to blank out the brains of 
every single ghost. instead, they walk.
bridle & blood worms. angry dandelion. 
i bark at the sun until he is a witch too.
let's not forget the feast. rose scented skin.
glass dining halls. a napkin tapped 
on a lip. i did not swallow the nails,
i hammered them into the wall 
of my bedroom. used them to climb
onto the ceiling & call out to the mother.
electric fence crown. holy bovine
& split hoof. i am the animal child 
who does not die. i am piecemeal
& butchered. bone crawling back
to a source. what does my yielding taste like?
& you thought i would just hang by my feet. 
i return to the field that never was 
& dance there, everyone's head on fire. 

foxglove

open your mouth purple.
sing like the pocket knife 
in the flea market wallow. 
i killed the most beautiful tooth
i could find & named its absence 
after our kitchen. you brought me
every poison but i loved
the foxglove the most. 
i could picture us asleep 
inside one of the telephones.
gardens blossom with spring televisions.
there's nothing good on tv anymore.
let's watch an execution. let's watch
a finger puppet. 
we ate unblessed communion wafers 
& tasted god's elbows.
i have a cellar i keep just
for your shoes. fill each with 
marble pilots. a king once ruled
over my knuckles. now i feed him
fig newtons & he lives beneath me.
i still think about catching rats 
all night & tossing them
in garbage bags. their corpses 
turned into overripe honeydew.
i have never been able to trust
what i see & what i hear.
instead, rely on taste. kiss doorknobs.
put on pineapple lipstick.
you wave goodbye. it is high noon
& not a time for endings.
so many stomachs to hold pits.
the plum tree grows 
without any encouragement 
& i am so jealous. 

leftovers 

my meatloaf parts are always urgent.
tell me tomorrow will have grease
& a good sturdy kitchen table
covered with hands. i sever mine
while chopping up a holy day.
the slime of sacrifice & swarm.
standing in the glorious fridge light
& waiting for an angel to make 
a proper fortune of me. this does not come.
instead, a frog falls from the ceiling 
& demands us to eat his legs.
there is food that begs to wait
& food that begs to be devoured
on the spot. the tupperware 
are lidless & cruel. we search all night
for a red survivor. i tell you
in a pickle limbo that i am tired
of being stupid. aren't we all though?
it is important to be sad & selfish 
at least once a week. if not, what
will the poems be for? who will
the priest think about before
he microwaves his hungry man?
there is a miracle of loaves & fishes
inside my tuesday. i return to your face
& find it stacked high with plates.
then, mine too. the eldest daughter
cooks for everyone. when she does 
we come to eat her. don't get me wrong
i am not an eldest daughter. i am not
an eldest anything. i am the woven face
of a grocery store pie you ate standing up.
don't worry. i have more. 
the forks are decapitated by a thought
of permanence. i try to put their heads
back on but they are no more.
utensil graveyard. you put ketchup
on everything even my hand. 
i ask you how it tastes but 
you can't hear me over the dishwasher
gnawing on bones. 

chlorine  

a whale slept in the diving well
which i told no one else about.
in the summer the pool was
my babysitter & my companion
& my bully & my crush. 
i swallowed chlorine. 
pressed dollar store goggles
to my face & imagined a reef 
on the cement floor of the pool.
i brought the whale offerings:
a scrunchie or a single french fry.
the whale had the face of an old man.
a beard made of television static.
he told me, "do not talk to boys."
i explained to him, "i am a boy."
he said, "i know." the whale sometimes
surfaced in the form of a basketball.
teenagers played on the courts 
beside the pool. on the farthest end
there was a grill where adults went
to laugh about nothing. burgers 
& hotdogs all july. once i stepped
in ketchup & thought i was bleeding to death.
the whale said, "you will know
when you are bleeding to death.
there will be a pool of only your own blood."
i pretended to be a god sometimes.
one who could command water. 
the ocean was so small but i filled it
with sharks & razors. licking salt
from my fingers as i sat on the edge.
the whale always called. he pleaded,
"come & sing to me." even in the deep 
i could still hear the loud speakers
spilling radio across water. i sung along.
the whale said, "i would like
to make a bullet out of your voice."
i don't know if he ever did. 
it is dangerous to be as alone as i was.
you start to see everything in sapphire
& walk whales on leashes. i left at sunset.
sky an orange warning. feet pruned.
fresh freckles sprouted across my nose. 

cigarette garden

i've been burning my guts without any help.
sometimes my stomach is a super highway.
it's the one i take to my neighbor's house.
in his attic there are moths 
with the faces of girls in my grade.
i used to take the yearbook & black out
all my faces. i switched from saying,
"when i go back" to "if i go back."
don't let anyone tell you there is
a light at the end of the tunnel. there's
maybe a strawberry sandwich if we're lucky.
i try to walk on mashed potato legs.
the floor is lava. now the floor is fly traps.
why can't we all just lay in a pool of
our own playdates? i go outside the mall
& find a cigarette garden. you are smoking there
even though you don't smoke. sometimes i wish i did.
i might have more time to think about trees 
& my retina detaching. beach ball party.
a tiny little paper umbrella. don't worry
about disappearing. everyone does it
once in awhile. mine just comes 
like blue cotton candy. let's walk between
the burning jaws of our future 
& say to one another, "isn't this
a beautiful garden?" we are either playing
ping pong or billiards. the weight of the ball
is different but nothing else. 
men are digging in the sand for a still burning
collapsible organ. at the thrift shop
someone hands over a half-smoked pack
of gardenias. one tiny spider descends.
i don't bother telling him i am a death pool.
instead, i lie sweetly & tell him
i am a garden full of tinsel.  

finger trap 

i put the highway in a tupperware
to take it to my grandfather.
his eyes spin like wild tops 
& in his teeth he holds a snake.
i was baptized twice:
once in the broth pot
& once by him in the backyard kiddie pool.
the snake has a telephone
& is calling an angel to arrest us.
i take comfort in knowing
i'm descended from dishonor.
honor is overrated & always flows back
to police. instead i come from 
a costume jewelry necklace of escapes.
dominos in their natural habitat.
my grandfather died 
in what became my bedroom.
his ghost would play cards 
by himself. he doesn't need the highway
but i'm trying to say, "look i am
still alive." when you need evidence
to prove that, you might be
less alive than you think.
i get italian water ice & turn my skull
into a fingertrap: a self-capture where
mice arrive to beg for everything
you've got in your pockets. 
luckily, i don't have anything good.
i don't have heirlooms. i don't have
photo albums. i have stories 
& a cane. i have a mirror that 
when i peer into, i see a tunnel of faces.
you can back yourself into a burn pile
or you can say, "here is the highway."
his ghost eats it with a plastic fork 
then wipes his mouth on his sleeve. 

finger trap

i would drive two hours to see you
for just a spoonful of peanut butter.
eating your other half
of a stale bagel
in your studio. 
pigeons outside had more
self-preservation than me.
i am always knitting
a future of vaults.
rapunzel moon in chastity.
you gave me a key & i thought
that meant we were pouring cement.
i thought this was a house
of fingers. instead, i turned 
my eyes into snails. you stopped responding.
i drove & parked outside 
your apartment building,
worrying that you had died.
the city was always a snow globe
tucked into your cheek.
muck of winter. the warmth 
of your breath 
on the thin windows.
each again made me a collector
of pennies. heads up or tails,
i didn't care.
once, i started driving there
& my car's engine began
to spill smoke. i could have
turned back but instead
i kept driving until the engine 
swarmed with knuckles. a ringing phone.
the piles of knees i had shed.
you saying, "goodnight"
into a cereal bowl. i could reach you
& i couldn't get home.
i walked until the ground was
made of keyboards. finally 
a stork came by & said,
"you look like you believe
in god." i responded,
"you are wrong." the bird said,
"we're going to need to amputate."
he pointed to my fingers
one fused to the other
from promises i shouldn't have
kept making. they took months 
to grow back. months after
we stopped talking &
i turned into a salamander 
in a new city. still i wonder
if there is a chapel where
our thumbs go to be lovers
if they are happy. if a limb is ever gone. 
if you understood i wasn't burning
myself on the sidewalk for you. 

killing tree

there was blood for days 
after we cut down the pines.
a pair of legs stood
where their stumps used to be.
all the feral cats came
& brought offerings 
of mailboxes & lighters.
one of my father's favorite phrases is,
"it is the way it is." 
he repeated that to himself
from the rocking chair
in my old bedroom.
by this time i was dead too.
i only had a handful
of state quarters to my name.
i took sips from his glasses
of beer as vengeance. 
some people pour out 
& some people drink the world dry.
i wondered about the flesh,
the wood. the birds who used to
knit baby blankets in the branches.
the trees were not gone though
they were angry. i watched
as they shook their bomb shelters
at us. as they waved a sword.
as blood continued to gush
from the legs. my father said
in the bones of our house
there was wood rot
in the shape of the trees.
he said that was why 
we had to kill them. 
i stood in the yard with the legs.
i always wanted a witness,
someone to see what he did to me.
i told the trees i would witness them.
stand so long in the yard
that my own shadow 
would too rot a place in the skin
of the house. the legs 
were my legs. the shadows
were always my shadows.
the feral cats brought dead geese
& empty bottles. i thanked them,
slipping them thimbles of cream.