bird closet

keeping all my feathers for tuesday.
i put on my beak to pluck the worms
from the harpsichord. have you never seen
a bird with the legs of a girl?
in college everyone had a love poem.
mine screamed until i killed it
with a thumb tac. pressed the body
into the wall. some people walk around
& don't even know how easy they have it.
no migration to take each year 
in search of an impulse. i tell my invisible therapist
"i'm doing it again" & by "it" i mean everything.
i mean filling the closet with birds
& telling everyone they are just props.
buying chess boards & calling
random phone numbers. when someone 
picks up saying, "i have been waiting
to talk to you for years" & seeing
who they think i am. don't we all
want to be who someone is waiting for?
i lock myself in the bird closet. they birds
dream of merciless weekends. they dream
of throwing axes at the moon. 
they beg for a flashlight so they can do
shadow puppets. i curl into an egg.
listen to my own yolk 
as it sings. walking around my house
in only a thong i realize the windows 
& wide open. someone has me
as their science fair project. an ra knocks
on my door room door & barges in.
there is no privacy in being an egg.
he points to the covered smoke detector
& says "that's going to be 200$."
the birds in the closet yell at me or him.
i would do anything to never disappoint. 
an intervention causes me to let them go.
one at a time. i don't want my friends to know
they've talked me out of my lovely mania.
one bird out the window. one bird 
set free by the river. another in the library.
another in my backpack. one. just one left.
inside the closet. i bring him churros 
& lollipops. he weeps. i tell him 
he is not really alone. i am here. 

stolen guava 

at the grocery store i worship the devil. 
a pound of peanuts. a pound of ice.
dropping a gallon of milk
in the middle of the aisle as a sacrifice.
what i want is broken strings of beads.
i am thinking about processes.
how a seed is held in the mouth 
of a man. he spits it into the dirt & then
another man bends over picking 
his own eyes from the stalks all day.
truck after truck. there is a delivery 
at the front of the store & all the workers go
to ferry boxes from one bone to the next.
i read nutrition labels as if 
i'm looking for scripture. here comes 
the secret vitamin gospel. bananas 
where all of them are too small & none 
are the right amount of ripe / not ripe.
i find a guava & they are too expensive.
they are ready though & they are eager.
put the whole fruit in my mouth.
hear a chorus of fingers. i never meant
to be as hunger as the supermarket says i am.
i wanted to pick berries from the face
of a wild goat. i wanted a tin foil farm.
a disco ball swelling in the july sun.
never once did they tell me 
getting older would be about 
unhinging your jaw. taking whatever
you can take. a passage of seeds. little bells
between my teeth. i go to the meat section
to stare at msucle. i go to the eggs 
& contemplate filling my pockets.
holding the eggs in my hands
for days until ghost chickens hatch
& traverse the ceiling of our apartment. 
i leave with the taste of guava 
still in my mouth. 

one-sided conversations with the cicadas outside my parent's house

i don't want to be a girl anymore.
i know i'm already not 
but at night when all i can think about
is my faults i feel myself 
becoming a hair tie. i kiss toads
& hope they turn into black birds.
instead of crying i build a waterfall
inside my chest & i take you on a tour there.
please understand i have never once
said "no" & meant it.
there are planets with teeth just like mine
crooked as headstones. i want to sleep 
like you. i want to know what it's like
to turn off the world. press my body
into the dirt & hear nothing but
the shudders of the world.
i wake up & my body is coming apart.
i don't sleep. i burn my hand on the stove.
make pirogues in the morning 
& cry trying to eat. my elbows 
have rashes. i want so badly to be a girl.
i don't want my shoe horn life or else
i do & it is terrifying. the streets fill
with telescopes. i run to you. try to 
become you. i hold my self like thorned stem.
cut the head off again. promise me
you love me. promise me you just
as i am. teach me how to scream 
like you do. i want to scream so loudly
all my skin becomes a species.
bird or bat. eating mosquitos until i'm skin.
my blood has shoe laces. a ripe midnight.
split yourself open for me. because i cannot.
because i crave to slip my whole body
from my skeleton & leave a little statue behind. 

bobcat talking

we all went down to make offerings
to the bird feeder before leaving. a radio talks
about the future. it says,
"enjoy the next thirty years at most."
stop at a shoulder town.
rusted gas station. 
i try to not get too depressed 
but then i see a bobcat eating microwave 
breakfast sandwiches & i think
"where is the world going?"
i ask him if he will please wild-animal on me.
he says he's given that up & now
he sells insurance to already-dead parrots.
all around the woods is neon
& noiseless. i used to hike & make notches on trees
to remember my pathway. it is delightful
being alone sometimes. i always see myself
as a pupil in a sea of my own strawberries. 
eating the blinked word away.
let's wash our hands. let's knock
on the doors of neighbors who aren't home.
i miss my house in the middle of nowhere.
the raccoons would come with sudoku in hand.
we would talk into the night about hobbies
none of us had time for. the bobcat 
has a box of mike & ikes so we split them.
i say, "you could still chow down on me
if you wanted to." he shrugs. 
the geese above are holograms or
possibly a government experiment. 
he licks his paws. i scroll on my phone.
the gas station we're sitting at has 
no other cars but mine. he points up
to a tree nearby. a woodpecker pounds the trunk
& i feel moved to tears. he says,
"that is an omen." it is better not to ask
what the omen is of. before i leave
i take a picture of him & he poses feral for me.
the woodpecker knocks. a trap door 
to the afterlife. smell of gasoline & plastic. 
a man sings about microwave pizza
on the gravel-throat radio. 

teeth garden

i lost my face one cantaloupe at a time.
sweet in the way gummy sharks are.
swimming to keep from the trench.
i bought as many clay pots as i could
to save my teeth. they fell like rain.
hail plummeting in the front yard. a dazed snow
in the back. i slip teeth into soil.
wait for all my faces to grow. a loud face
& a pineapple face & a rose water face.
lips first & then come the shut eyes.
i once grew a whole lover this way.
stole a tooth while he was sleeping. 
did he feel that fissuring? where another
self grows from the first. i wonder
if there are burials inside me or if
there is a chain linked fence. i do not know
how to eat without any faces. i carry
a spoon in my back pocket. a kitchen knife 
brandished like a solution. the hair 
sprouts wild. i tell a lover, "my hair is black."
which is a lie. my hair is whatever
it feels like being that day. It's been black
& gray & blue & buttery orange. 
the teeth are plentiful. grow blinking berries.
i take pictures. put them in baby clothes.
haven't you ever needed urgently 
to parent an inanimate object? i cradle
a pencil case. sing to an orphaned shoe.
i have to do what i have to do in order
to keep the remaining teeth in my skull.
last night they kept falling. duct tape. glue.
gorilla. a thin little hat pin. the plants 
are restless. i take them for a walk
in my old red wagon. the moon even grins.
full. canine. incisor. drinking glow.
there are still more of me to plant
& more to press deep into the wet earth
to never speak of again. 

canned pears

stepping inside the paper bag 
i became the little hard candy 
you wanted to put under your tongue.
at the soup kitchen 
we sat in the back eating birthday cake
thrown out by a grocery store nearby.
the roses looked like lips. they talked
& said, "don't worry about being ugly."
tear filling. i cried & the green beans
asked for mercy. crooked fingernails.
no one wants to keep the fruit for winter.
we want to eat right now.
sit under the pear tree in my great aunt's house
& feast until we are pearl drunk.
stealing money from the top drawer.
from the purse. don't keep cash around me
i'll turn it into butterflies. let's eat sand.
let's eat a handful of sugar & run
until our knees fall off. i tell the doctor
that lately my joints have been coming
out of their sockets. he suggests running more.
i become a puppet. you take me
to first grade again. start over. 
canned pears in my lunch box. canned pears
in my bed. i tear the arms off my dolls.
i worship my stuffed animals 
like the tiny gods they are. we could
put the whole tree in a can. listen
as the wasps call their mothers.
i don't always remember why or how 
to chew. the pears are good for that.
slither down my throat as wild slugs.
well at least it is still summer. at least
there is an unlost pair of scissors. 
plastic fork. playing the electric organ. 

pickle jar

i wanted to keep the day intact 
so i wrapped it in tissue paper
& bled on it like a ritual stone.
when you pickle a tongue
you brush it in salt. it stung 
all day as i tried to talk about
forever in terms of air. you wore
the snakeskin wedding dress 
& i wore a shawl knit from bird eyes.
i see the whole world & it is
a blueberry. kissing in the pocket
of a greater god. do not tell me
anything about forever. i know
we are going to be pesto. i know
we are going to grow cucumbers
& drown them in goosebumps.
from inside, i hold my breath.
count to ten. try to accept
my fate as a believer. processed cheese
in the fridge. melting a slice 
of perfect. let's keep this going.
don't rest. stay up until 
the sky is a shriveled raisin.
ripe plum. pluto without the god.
i'm trying to have a lovely disease
instead of this fickle one. 
there aren't enough fish 
in the sea. there is only one
& it is you. we saved the day.
we sealed the lid. you called me 
"beautiful" & i didn't jump 
from the roof.

fire escape

i don't have any more fish.
come & crawl out of my mouth again.
i am breaking windows
with a fist. glass. sugar.
run with me & pretend
there is nothing wrong.
flower maze. kiss me. kiss me more.
not enough air. the fire escape
covered with potted plants.
then, the dragon has a child
& the child has a radio. calling
the moon for help. wanting 
so badly to have a god
that you invent one. there she is
& she says, "give me your desperation."
once there was a void & it named 
me "blue." please come back
& kiss me like we used to.
walk a thousand miles
in the ardent rain to the house
that still manages to be 
consumed by flames. i do not have
many beetles left. i keep spending them
on shaking hands. i could not sleep.
i saw you covered in ants.
my demons said, "this is eternity."
i did not want to see it
but they kept making me look. 

parakeet

i mean to say i have eaten 
a poison airplane. has anyone 
told you that you were beautiful 
in a terrible way? please shout at me 
what i need to hear. make the lie
glorious & full of red bean. 
i was just drinking tea for hours
inside a dragonfly. coughed up
my organs one at a time. they were
just bouncy balls. i don’t have 
the guts to tell you i am
looking longingly at pet shops.
put me in a little world 
& feed me the good seed. 
take away my driver’s license
before i get too many ideas.
i used to have visions of
letting all the birds go. thumb worth
of chili oil. rolling my tongue 
in spines. please bring a basket
to carry me in. my panic 
has feathers. repeats everything 
i say. “i do not want the world 
to die.” chicken bones on
the sidewalk. my favorite fantasy
is the one where we wake up 
& neither of us have bodies.
spitting the parakeets out of
our throats. will you promise me
something you cannot? will you
help me cut a hole in my skull
& pull out all the feathers? 

mammalogy 

we sat together as you filled in the name of every bone.
skeleton pictures laid out across your dorm room floor.
weeks ago i lied to my parents to stay with you in new york.
city of skulls & lost irises. out your window, rain fell
& in the morning i walked alone up & down
the streets of hells kitchen. i pretended to be working
on my own school work but i was busy imagining a life together
in which i would lay out & you would point
to every muscle & bone. you would name me. 
i knew i wasn't going to love you as long as i wanted.
my body came apart in my hands. i begged for you 
too often. sitting in the college's sculpture garden
outside of your dorm. then, the snow. slept all day.
blood & warmth. the smell of your sweet musty room.
four chambered hearts. each chamber a storage room.
body of a whale. body of a red panda. you said,
"i can never remember it all." all the creatures 
sprawled out on the floor. little blanks 
over all of their strcutures. i told you, "one word
at a time. one skeleton at a time." when i left 
your apartment in the city i knew i would
never be back. drinking coffee from a silver mug.
looking out the shop window at all the teeth
on their way to work. you can love someone so briefly.
point to bones with them. fibula. pelvis.
claw. jaw. tell them how badly you have wanted
to jump from rooves. weep with them. 
walk in the snow. & then sometimes you are 
both gone. new mammals. leaving the old ones
in love notes & windows. i held up a diagram of an elephant. 
it was one you had completed. you pointed & said, 
"i want to tell you about this one when we're done."