echo suitcase 

we spent all weekend pickling wings.
save the distance you need
to escape. knocking on the door
the echo salesmen are determined
to make a repetition out of you.
perform the same mistake again
& become a voiceover. i am talking
into a lady bug's heartache. i am
calling friends i haven't spoken to
in lifetimes. i say, "do you remember
when we tried to eat the bible?"
the person on the other line replies,
"do i know you?" we buy a vintage 
& show it off the neighbors. they are
very jealous. why should you
punch a hole in the wall? because
there is blood beneath there waiting
to get out. the salesmen would kneel
in front of their suitcases like an altar.
here is the god of your promise. here is
what you can deserve for the price
of a return. i will not be going back.
i have done that before & each time
it involved more grease. slipping
into a jello mold in the shape of a jesus.
i don't have enough eye lashes to trade. i don't
believe in "this time around." instead,
i know that once there is a mountain
there is another version of you
living there. he is happy & safe 
& his only job is to repeat exactly 
what you say. whisper in the dark.
shout in the afternoon at the tangerine moon.
i don't want to be blamed for what
i reenact. the question becomes though
then who is? i am a puppet of my own puppet.
go ahead. mouth yourself out of this one.
visit the mirror & try to get your image
to say something in disagreement. 

apple pie talking

in my american voice 
i say i want to talk about sweetness. 
there is a gun in the oven
or is that a bun or is that 
a christ figure? i used to take a bus
into a recipe card. i never had
a sugar grandmother. instead 
she bought soap in the shape of gods.
washed herself until she was only bone.
i want to eat everything with a scoop
of vanilla ice cream by which i mean
you never called me back.
the supermarket is a cathedral 
if you open you mouth
& close your eyes. apples from 
the center of the earth. i have a weapon
as a uterus. i have a mailbox
full of little fires. i have tried
to be a son more than once to no avail.
called a representative & heard 
bird calls on the other line.
i say, "i want you to stop killing my friends."
passing the receiver to elevator music beings. i wait 
& wait & a child picks up. says,
"i think you have the wrong kind of hope." 
swallowing the pie whole
is the only way to get it down. 
this is not a good place. this is 
a murder commercial. buy one history 
get another one without asking.
there are no leftovers. there were
never any leftovers. i licked
the tin clean. 

swing set

the day i brought home a swing set 
was the day i stopped trying to talk it out.
you were painting a portrait of me
on your bedroom wall.
i was using my blood as ink
to try & write a new gospel. 
i hid it from you under my tongue. 
on the swings i could become a cantaloupe.
round & full of sweet water.
there i could believe in a life
without all the turkey meat in the fridge
& without having to put my eyes 
in a glass of water each night.
the painting you did of me looked 
like a flock of geese. you would come
& try to get me to leave the swing set
to look at it. a glimpse was enough
to know it wasn't really a portrait 
of me. it was what you craved.
we can sometimes turn our lovers
into the gender we hunger for 
& not the gender they are.
the downstairs neighbors complained
of the rocking noise of the swing set.
they clawed at the door, begging
to swing too. it was all mine though. 
i had worked too hard to lug it up
the flights of stairs. this was my glorious 
chapel. this was my elsewhere machine.
eventually i swung so hard
it broke. i wept for a whole lunar cycle.
you couldn't stop smiling.
"now we can," you said, suggesting
something i didn't understand.
"one more," i would say, meaning
i wanted just one more sway 
back & forth. your painting had spread
like a weed. ate the ceiling & some doors.
everything was covered with not-me.
you said, "here, let me show you"
taking me by the hand to pull me up
off the apartment floor.  

pizza delivery

give me my lungs back.
i never said i was going to 
be a jesus fisherman. it's raining
& there are camera men. it hasn't rained
since i was an anchovy. 
you hold the pizza cutter 
like a microphone. talk into the fissure.
talk into the grease. i wore the cheese dress
when i got married the first time.
no one expected me to cry.
i had a baby from knots of guilt.
she quickly turned into a peperoni slice.
i told her, "it's much better this way."
gender has a funny way of asking you
to do chores. shave a cat. toss the dough.
chip a tooth trying to climb
the side of the building to free your lover.
if you haven't been laying on a roof
at some point we have nothing in common.
i would pluck stars & put them
in my ears to hear something good.
i try to inhale & i breathe in
coal perfume & boyhood. don't get me wrong.
there are worse things than 
being misunderstood. i could be
anniversary. i could be annihilation. 
instead, i have just a plastic drinking cup.
the well's wild guts. i just want
my breath again. the doorbell rings 
& i try not to get my hopes up.
rushing to open it, thinking,
"this time it might be my lungs." 

darkroom

the camera wakes up
with fur & noise. goes to capture 
my bruised back. haven't you ever 
taken a shovel to the night sky
in search of the quiet you need?
you ask me, "why do you push me
away?" i get on a hot air balloon.
i fly to the arctic where the sky is tight
as a drum. there, my grandfather shivers
& dreams of his rain forest. 
colorful feather angels. an alien 
watching as humans work to built
a temple from dust. the alien flies away
& until he dies tells the story as,
"they were terrifying." i do not want
to be alone. i find myself in the black light
holding up images of our faces.
i cannot tell them apart. fun house teeth.
shut eyes. my father, face down
in developing solution. i lift him
& he is as light as a piece of paper.
printed across his face is my face.
i put the crime scene on a rocket ship.
"don't open the door," i plead.
"you have to let me see," you say
through the door. i am orpheus 
or eurydice. the sun has a knive 
in his pocket. he says, "there is no photograph."
i weep in reply, "but can't you hear them?" 

this is your brain w/o worms

we could be the bbq girlfriend gender
but we're busy trying to find a midnight. 
licking our fingers. balance is held
in the gore of it all. strawberry gutted,
i walked right into the bear trap.
in the doctor chair he pulls out
a magnifying glass & presses it to my ear.
as a child, my uncle liked to torture me
with a story about worms that came
& ate your brain while you slept.
he said, "they crawl in through your ear."
awake with a can of bug spray,
i'd keep vigil over my head. maybe this is
when i started not sleeping. i confess this all
to the doctor who is wearing a mask.
he takes off the mask & reveals he is
just a collaboration of worms. he says,
"do not be afraid" stealing the language
of angels. i do not want to be emptied.
the doctor takes a picture though
& shows me that my brain is already 
full of insects. i feel suddenly at peace.
sometimes when you fear something
for so long, it can feel like an exhale for
it to actually come to pass. here i am
with my whole gender ahead of me.
all my napkin girlness & my boy teeth.
"what do i do to take care of them?"
i ask & the doctor hands me a music box.
"sing each full moon," he instructs. 
i take my bugs & me into the street.
there, everyone is eating their own 
wheel of cheese. i worry now in the opposite direction.
what if the bugs decide to leave
& i am turned into a hand puppet?
i ask the worms in my quiet voice,
"you like it here, right?" they answer 
with demands for baja blast.
i can do that, i think. i can do that. 
we have a drive-through hymn. 
briefly, then, they are satisfied. 

watering fake flowers

you tell yourself
"this time it will be different."
i remember the sun tapestry 
that hung on the far wall of 
your bedroom. your tiny window
staring at the brick wall
of the bodega next to our building.
eating french fries 
from angels & pretending 
we were the prophets. the way a wrist 
can become a stem. i bought you flowers 
from the gas station & we devoured them
with ranch dressing.
took a trowel to the wooden floors
& tried to find third-floor soil.
nothing by photographs
lay beneath. that's where we put
the plastic flowers: a hydrangea bush
& roses & marigolds. 
i got on my knees to water them.
poured a river from my wrist.
you had your headphones in. you were
sharpening a letter opener. 
my heart was always a jackelope around you. 
remembering how easily 
i turned into a rat. you,
chasing me
down the narrow hallway.
once, it rained so hard the alley ways flooded.
you came home as a drenched dog.
i brought you a towel to dry you off
& you shoved me against the wall.
you said, "lay down." i became
the plastic flower. a carnation.
a needy root. i always though maybe
they might come alive.
that through a process of dreaming
i could make us soft & moss-like.
what i've never told you is
sometimes
but only when you weren't home
the flowers would turn real.
they would laugh & blow kisses.
i would say, "will you stay?"
they would reply
or maybe just echo, "will you stay?" 

i tell you i want to be a gravedigger 

you say, "you know how deep you 
would have to dig?" i am guilty 
of romanticizing soil & thinking only
in terms of summertime. a shovel in hand
& nothing but the talk of doves.
breaking the first layer
of grass & weeds
is like pulling hair from 
my own skull.
i wouldn't put on headphones i would
listen to the shlack of lifted earth.
stand in the fissure, lowering myself
like a skeleton. postage stamp of blue sky above. 
cloud animals stampeding & telling one another
"someone has died." everyone knows
that the first stage after death
is to live a day as a cloud animal.
i hope i am a fox with a funhouse face. 
maybe what i'm craving 
is the promise of completion. 
how a wound can be excavated 
& healed. even that is not true though.
returners come with arms full
of flowers & pictures & food.  as a gravedigger i would
make it my duty to ensure 
each headstone's gifts remained 
perfectly placed despite the wind
& rain. maybe my desire then is 
to be a caretaker. to hold on 
to the liminal. to make a home here. 
i do not know how to respond to your question
about how deep i would have to dig. 
i answer concretely because sometimes
we have to talk in numbers
to say what we mean. "six feet.
that's taller than me." 

what i'd like our gravestones to say

here was a finger puppet.
an orange julius. come take off
your shoes & your face while you're at it.
bring pie & lotus flowers. bring
your tattoo gun & give each other
extra eyes. turn the television on.
i don't want to watch the news 
put on something i've seen before.
play twister. play boombox love poetry.
kiss each other. invite me to your birthday.
you do not need a seance
just a bowl of hard candies. 
leave a toe nail clipper here. leave
a photograph of what we used 
to look like before my annihilation.
here is where i was turned 
into grease. here is where i was 
taken from my dress. thumb
to candle flame. here was a sweet tooth.
here was a women with an apple tree
coming out of her mouth. here was
a boy who walked late at night 
through the pupils of grin-handed men.
here is a future octopus. here is
where i want to meet you again. 
here is where i hang 
the disco ball. bring perfume.
bring a trans flag & all the pronoun pins
your can manage. bring candles.
bring your ripe peach heart.
here was a person. here was a root.
do not call me dead. i was taken. do not
call me dead. i am a waterfall
waiting for the right moment.
as my lover bring me your weeping ocean.
as my community bring my
your rage. bring me your teeth. 
when you leave here 
talk as if i am laying
in the ground right below your feet. 

iced tea

the mood board is a dream
of sorcery. all the thumb tacs i keep
in my cheeks. what is flesh but
a backyard trampoline? you look at me
& say, "don't let this become us"
as we pass a house without a door.
sometimes i consider buying you 
a planet for us to make out on.
then i check my bank account 
& i am too full of myself. i am too
eager to be a dragon. there are 
more men in this world than fire exits.
what i'm trying to say is let's not
tell too much of the truth. let's not
claim to eat pudding when we're 
eating blood. the knife collector
knocks on our door & promises
that he has a great sale for us. 
there's nothing to do but run
& try to quench your thirst.
as a girl sometimes we would brew iced tea
by leaving it out in great jugs in the sun.
i wanted all my "girlfriends" to be girlfriends
which is ironic because now i only really love
beautiful boys. let the angels spit into the leaves.
crack my spine for ice cubes.
a postage stamp of splenda. 
drink until i have a headache forest.
"this is delicious" i say while pretending
to swallow whatever moon we've milked
to make this day. i have never once
lied to you. whenever i lie 
it's someone else. a falcon on my tongue.
i can't be blamed for what happens
after we are quenched. this is our
backyard fib. this is the rotten oldsmobile
& the wiffle ball bat. close your eyes.
"go touch grass," 
the electric prophet instructs. 
there is no grass so we pretend.