lunch meat 

give me your all-the-time face.
i sliced my finger salami & you reached
to where the muscle meets sinew.
medallions & marrow. i watch my father
as he hovers over a bush of bologne roses.
petals & pearls. we would go to the market
where a man with a saw mill face
lifted cylinders of flesh. the cows 
who talked about the weather until
a bolt went through their brains.
last moments thinking about television
& ciruses. the saw mill faced man 
was once a cow as were you & i. 
you come & go. you promise this is not
the end but just where hunger takes us.
why does hunger lead us no where go?
do not trust my tongue. i am eating myself.
i have not swallowed meat in years but sometimes
i wake up with a sausage in between my teeth.
remember the pressure to be a hole.
his hands gliding meat across a blade. 
to come apart in petals. freshly dead. 
meat grinder. windows of fat. frilly dress
of the pastrami. sitting on my grandmother
as she becomes a thin cow. i lead her
to a lake of mirrors. we drink ourselves full.
i try not to remember everything to do with
how i learned i have a mouth. 
the man asking, "is this too thick?"
my grandmother asks, "could it be thinner?"
i think if it were any thinner
the meat would be a veil. salt & peppercorn.
he measures a pound. we take our 
body home wrapped in wax paper. 

pet bee

this year bees came the size of dogs.
a hive took over the old movie store 
that's been vacant since i was eight.
their honey pouring across the sidewalk.
everything smells like syringe & omen.
i walk down to try to court one 
of the creatures. i have always loved 
dangerous company. stingers 
the size of kitchen knives. they say
by the year 2050, that bees will be
the size of volkswagen beetles. i have
never been so ready for the end times.
i do not save baseball cards or photographs.
i eat with my favorite spoon. i scroll
looking for a video that will ring
all the bells of my little chapel. 
the bees swarm. fur on their backs.
eyes like two-way mirrors. fun house horrors.
no one else comes to greet them. i bring
offerings of flowers. i tell them 
if i could i would swarm too. 
i wait patiently for hours. try to find
a god to pray for & picture him as a great bee.
his form eclipsing the sun. finally,
one comes forward. he fits perfectly
into the medium dog collar i bought
at the pet store up the street.
i say, "we are going to sing everyday together."
the bee laughs like a dvd player
& together we walk home in the seeds
of a perfect end times. for now
the trees are fruiting. for now we are 
each other's companion. i confess
to the bee. "i have always been by myself."
the bee does not answer. i feel 
her words in the tall grass. she's saying,
"you are in good company.
a hive is a place where everyone is alone." 

juicer

jailing all the juju bees 
we buzzed like micro phone wednesday.
the tiny place where your
sisters call from just to say 
the wedding was a pile of tin cans. 
joy comes from watching
a carrot turn to pulp. all the sinew
& apologies gone shoulder-rub
in the jaws of a metal snake.
they will say we don't have enough money
to go to the moon this year
but really we don't have enough
nectarines. we take everything we can.
juice the newspapers & the pocket watches.
locks of hair. cow poet's tongue.
moments before a tornado
just standing there in the sepia haze
of a corn field. teeth fall like hail.
bigger & bigger until we have shark teeth
& t-rex chompers on our hands.
i pour you a glass & a bead of sweat
drips down my face while i wait
for you to drink. this is what 
you have been waiting for. this is
the town in a single gulp. 
legs motoring underneath the table.
i shake every seat. jumping spider me.
let's pretend it will always be this easy.
roaring device. the empty house.
just you & the ruin. blood orange
& bite. i watch your soul
in the punch bowl. ladel myself
a glinting crystal glass. 

the length of a tea light

i am asking, how long
can you hold your breath?
slippers in the oven. pouring
a glass of water as tall as a sky scraper.
i waited so long to feel my mouth
bloom as a lily. 
landing a plane on your open palm.
you make me think of strands of pearls.
bread crumbs leading my mouth
to the space by your feet. 
call me your heaven dog. set the pie
on the windowsill & do not think
of what the crows will do. i hold
my orange scuffed lighter & bring alive
a little mother on the wick. have you
never thought to call a flame "my girl."
everything i was & everything i carry
into the darkened ballroom 
of my stomach. i promise to keep
a supply. to always have another candle ready 
to flicker. the eye of a glorious fallen angel.
brief in his watching. he pulls veils 
for underneath my tongue. i want 
to keep the room bright for you.
i am willing to burn every single bay leaf.
the sage plant & the peppermint bush. 
one fire after another. kissing the beats
between an allegator's wings. 
scale & syrup & needing you so bad
i run out barefoot in the night's braided hair. 
on alley giving flame to another.
a string of tea lights taking me back
to your hands where you cup me
as a firefly. i empty myself
of my glow. all for you.  

infinity pool

the water has a snake heart.
all the coil of dream eating dream.
i once floated on my back 
until the swans started to leave my skin.
i begged them to return 
with a walkie talkie. we sat in
the loud apartment & i handed you
telephone saying, "it's for you."
it wasn't for you. it was my god 
asking if he could stop by 
with a lemon bundt cake. you thought
the police could hear us. i thought
the ghosts could hear us &
i wanted them to. chicken breasts 
like slimy pink slugs. i don't remember
what it was like to chew flesh
but i guess it's probably like 
telling the truth after refusing it.
chlorine laughs until everyone is
a summertime. the public pool
has nothing to say about endless.
swimming in the dark of your eyes 
as you make promises both of us know
we won't keep. i will grill your shrimp
forever. i will kill all the rats 
in the world & bring their teeth to you
as offerings. living like this 
will make you mad. wanting the carrot
on the stick. the carrot has a condo
& i have a landlord. the landlord
lives inside a rung bell. he doesn't think
about me. or else he does & we are
in a nonconsenual fin dom relationship.
let me live with the goldfish.
give me the tile pool. no one else
just the void breathing & calling
"you should come home." cool water
across my skin. i tell the void,
"i am moon stone. i don't get a home." 

nuclear love poem

they test the sirens of my turquoise.
here are the men who guard against 
meltdown & i am putting them inside 
a plastic bag. spider under a drinking glass.
do not look too hard at what is 
fueling you. a dinosaur stands on the hood
of my car & i refuse to apologize.
we have to burn something. a ghost.
a greased gear. the towers grow more
each day with their permed hair clouds 
& loose teeth. all my bugs fall out &
i have nothing left to say to you today 
so we go into reactor & make a city. 
you tell me i glow like cave fish. eyeless,
i feel for the heat of your body. come make
a resevoir of me. a frog with two heads
& all of his prophecies. all the outlets 
in the house have tea lights inside.
candle lit dinner between two shrimp.
i would give you every bone in my body
one by one until i am a curtain.
pulling shut the day. do not tell me
anything else about the risks. i want
to bask in this blood. in the jewel moon.
an earring to share. taking off our shoes
to wade into water. steam in our hair.
switchyard men standing broad shouldered
& ready to make money off our
electricity. light bulbs fat from this touch.
we turn men to flies. we burn the bridge
& walk like striders on water. 
when the night comes it does nothing.
our skin radiates loud enough
so that i can find you through forests
& across chasms. come back &
let us make another star. 

the river dreams of clothing 

earrings slipped through fish babble.
a hook. a golden tooth.
the river carriers her faces like a server.
brings to surface. here are 
all the eye lashes. the skipped stone noses.
the body she pours over & over.
to wriggle toes. make a fist.
an anklet of pure gold. knocking mosquitos
out of the air. a dress of beads 
& blood. water comes like curtains hung in a caravan.
traveling her road of skulls & shoelaces. 
she thinks of standing upright but
can't find a single bone. breaking out
& running in the woods for the purple night.
leaving all the minnows & ancient sharks
mud gasping. her shoulders
bare all bodies. how do you tell 
your own skin from anothers.
day after day of flesh to flesh
& you start to wonder if we are 
a body only in chorus. chewing on 
doritos bags & blue rubber gloves.
are you my knees? are you my tongue?
she wonders must about driving.
holding on to the reigns of a beast
& slitting the night's throat open.
peering, she holds her eyes in her hands
& just as soon, her hands are gone. 
a fog horn for an iris. the pools 
species are lost in. she pictures a dress
of nothing but white bows. 
her bare skin. the moon feeding her
sugar cubes. the most she does 
is lift enough to touch the reeds
& the red clover bowing down.
they think she is blessing them. 

how to get rid of cockroaches 

sing to them so softly they cannot bear it.
tell them, "i too once found myself
so ravenous i crawled." in our apartment
there have always been roaches.
at first, a whole colony. late at night
on hands & knees fighting them.
heel to carapice. their lives turned into 
dandelion heads. scattered legs. 
a never ending scurrying. we all lived just
like them. the lobby door clanging open
& shut all through the night. 
morning where police tape wrapped the block
like a horror gift. crawling over one another.
all of our gentle body carried in our 
palms like poached pears. too much sweetness
& then not enough. an open window.
howling at the burrata moon. fresh & fragile.
music making a stomach of every room.
of course you could try the hard poison.
cans of raid & combat traps. dangerous & hurried. 
never fast enough. i thought, "devour & ghost." 
all the while the cockroaches moved
sewing each room in the buidling to the next.
their patterned necklaces. was i pendant?
a bead? the darkness where i wept 
& begged them all to leave. begged myself
to vacate bones. give me a cupboard empty
of all twitching. a home less like 
a show box. a place to live inside of
instead of a place to store your life
while you wait. the children who played
in the front yard. games of cops & robbers.
blue raspberry laughter. between 
the floor boards. i got down & whispered,
"leave while you can." i read online peppermint oil.
greased the throat of the apartment. 
smelled like fresh tongue. kissing behind 
the diner. also read that you could try garlic.
bought cloves & tucked them in the corners.
none of them worked. the cockroaches left
& returned on their own accord. 
i spoke sternly to them. one emptied heart
to another emptied heart, "give me my life."
holding the door open for the basement man
wheeling his cooler in from a long day of work.
he thanked me & we both saw a roach scurry 
across the hall from one room to another. 

weathercocks

the wind begs for my chin.
thumb. thread. drilling a hole
in my hand to let 
all the chickens out. there you go.
a weathercock is a place you go
to ask where the smoke will hail from.
spinning staircase inside
an ectopic mouth. where we go
to store the future. zephyr of mice 
running through the yard.
the weathercocks beg for forgiveness
as if they were the ones who saw a corn field
& thought, "television." the invention
of the love poem was the last time
anyone ever sighed. the weathercocks 
twirl. little mad ballerinas. 
once, we made one from toothpicks 
& straws. stood in the yard & wept.
there it goes. as far away as it can muster.
keep your nouns close & your adjectives 
full of bobbles & bonnets. i hold on
to my hat. the weathercocks plead 
that we all go outside to see 
a milky sunset full of spiders.
sharing a bite of pickle. brine 
for bedtime. i wish they had a place
to sleep. instead, a weathercock
spends his life guessing & hungry.
this way goes the snakes & that way
goes the angels. feeding you feathers 
i tell you, "it is going to be alright."
a lie is sometimes a kindness.
an offering to the weathercocks.
we bring birthday cake & potato rolls.
watch them feast while the wind
is briefly unread. 

birds talk migration 

silver ear for every frying noon.
eggs roll into iris. cream & speckled. you & i 
shed feathers over a blue bean. 
took june berries from the hair 
of a dead beast. home is a place
you come to beg. here & more more more.
marigolds that we will not see die.
giving mailbox nights 
everything wqe believe in. 
always knowing there will be
the return. pilgrimage of the spatula.
breaking every china plate & waiting
for a mother to come home. mine 
has a violet sheen to her crest.
she liked to talk green all day.
brought us fragments of her 
wriggling heart. mothers always
skipping children like stones.
now, we find a new field that smells
like chimney friendship. how do you know
where we are going? my body 
is less & less trustworthy. i follow
a vein in the earth. become headlight collector.
do you ever wonder if even the mountains
were once one of us? great birds
who stopped orbit & said,
"here is my soil." bones fusing 
to the rock. hollow still. cave hearts.
chamber after chamber. will you then
keep on with me? fly until 
our wings are moss & then talk again
in a bruised twilight both familiar 
& unraveled. porch light love.
lemon tree song. a man placing his hand
over his eyes to look at us despite the sun.