water-wheeling 

babble myself.
humming bird hallway.
in the ice cream shops 
of our irises we go with empty shopping bags.
fill them with oceans & lost earrings 
& stray tomato flowers. under my tongue
i am always the rotted log.
softened by rain after rain. you come
to sew me with beetles. legs of 
the hungry world. cupping you
in my palms & carrying you to 
the furnace where i make us 
into crystal. drink apricot nectar 
from our glistening. plummet is always 
spilling from my hands. washing 
winter & turning her green. i sprout
onion bulbs all over my skin
for you to harvest. soil & sun river.
folding the earth into a little 
paper triangle football. we are sitting
in the underwater diner 
at the bottom of the lake where
only silk genders can go. every word
a slippery bubble. they pop
& i catch words. "more" &
"always." i ache. the machine of me
powering a grain mill. corn into 
braided hair. teeth into flour
all from the rush. all from the water. 

stunt double

won't you pretend to be me
& go into the fire? tell them it was busy
in a glass dungeon of microwave lullabies
& feeder fish. or else promise them
you are me & your voice was just
tossed into a blender. we all need
another face we can send to do 
all the midnight carrier pigeon 
kind of business. i once walked 
miles to reach a gas station. my hands were
bombs i needed to diffuse. i called
my father & my father did not pick up.
instead, a whale answered & said,
"this is not the ocean." sometimes i want to believe
the only person i can count on is myself.
so much easier this way. then i'm here
cloning the problem. a room of me.
you jump off the cliff & you cancel
the dentist appointment & you call my father
again & beg him to teach me
anything he knows about carrying 
the water. manhood is a place we go 
to stave off a good wild crying. my stunt double
is one lunch break. my stunt double is falling
in love with the person i'm supposed to.
i am hunting my stunt double
& pleading for a hammer & nail life.
held into place. this is not a doorway 
this is a mouth of a great & beautiful monster.
slaying the dragon with my stunt double.
she cuts off its head & gives it to me.
why is he everything i am not? 
the lighter in a power outage. the one
who locks the doors at night.
here i am, with a telephone in my hand
thinking there is a father out there
who knows how to save a creature like me. 
his stunt double picks up & tells me,
"i love you so much but i do not know
how to know you." i thank his stunt double
& briefly i pretend it is really him & briefly
i am not sure if i am really the who 
one is talking or if i doubled 
in the darkness of all my aching. 
a little terrarium to keep myself in.
it eats peanut butter & sings
while i wait to need it again. 

pineapple love poem

when i met you
the fruit grew from my ribs 
like a thousand televisions.
all night i dream of us
in a forest of radios. i turn them
to any station & each holds
your voice. tell me a story about
a time you ate a planet.
i was so young & i would climb
the maple tree in the old school yard.
looking for fresh wild mars. 
knife in my pocket. quartering 
the fruit into managable flesh.
you say you like to look at my mouth
& all i can think of is feeding you flowers.
in another life we were two trees 
whose arms knotted in one another.
laughed so loud we bore pineapple
in the Pennsylvania winter.
fed anyone who passed by. you give me
the love of fishes. there is a school
of me & more & more scales 
that juggle sunlight. proliferating light.
we sit in my parked car & i have enough 
to tell to fill a species. questions & confessions.
i want to build you a thrown of nectar. 
a bed of lamb's ear. a life of rest & maypoles.
so, look at my mouth.
i am going to tell you 
everything i know 
about pineapple.

sudden waterfall

slit topaz throat of a new telephone.
i am trying to catch the blood 
as it becomes birds: doves & owls 
& dragons. this is how my soil
tells me i am static television thinking
of a life where we both live inside
the same terrarium in the windowsill 
of a gentle angel. where you could kiss me.
where we could grow alien flowers 
& sleep under wet stones. i am 
the landline's last scream. joy  
coming yellow & white in the form 
of a fresh fire. burning all the ruins 
& pretending there was never
a city in my mouth. call me a mayor 
of redactions. i was not on the cliff
last year praying to the old god. 
i am a sweet lavender crocus mother
& every day sheds a window. instead,
i am here with my doors open. i am here
as a herald. when you come i have 
a garland made of bells. i have 
my heart full of non-venmous snakes.
the telephone lines have been just for show
for decades now. they are black licorice.
i pass my days eating them. hear murmurs
of ancient conversations. "do they love me?"
"do they love me?" the not-wires sing.
i say, "they do" & i do not sleep.
put the morning sun in a cast iron pan
& fry it like an egg. 

white water

i once heard the water say,
"i am packing a bag." we watch
a river eat itself. ghost snakes 
& a thunder mannequin. 
all i ever wanted was a raft 
& a bedazzled sky. sometimes the magick
doesn't work & you have to set fire.
you have to call upon the old gods
& the older gods until you are just
talking into a mirror. yourself 
in the cervix of the earth. lava
comes from the spigot. have you ever
looked at your life & seen 
a crumpled airplane? i cannot remember
the last time someone kissed me
how i want to be. like a strawberry
bitten from the bush. i'll grow out my hair.
i'll eat licorice & change my name.
bare foot in the field of glass.
the water promises a new television 
or at least a new devil. somewhere to dump
all of the dead light bulbs & words
that no longer mean what you want them to.
the unpass grows flowers that taste
like gasoline. we stand on the edge
of the river & watch its anger. it rages,
crying, "what am i doing?" it tears out
its own eyes & eventually, miles away
calms down. hold itself. rocks back
& forth. lets its blood run like milk. 
gets on the phone again. call waiting.
soon someone will pick up & say,
"congradulations" by which they mean
you are hungry & there is a vanilla wafer sun.
there is still a body or at least 
a field of berries where you can go 
& be as red as you need to be. 

fool

i planted pits in my palms 
& believed i could grow plum trees
before i left today with the wormy sun.
enough fruit so that i would not go hungry.
the journey came for me with an ethernet cable 
& a word of honor. it said, "the world  was made
for your to devour." i laughed & thought
i could pack all my jewels 
& run towards the sound of 
purple crowds. beauty & danger 
are twin stars. one follows the other.
you cannot have one without the other.
now, the question is was i beautiful first
or was i dangerous? 
i find myself looking at angels often.
they dazzel with their pinwheels
& sharp teeth. i wave & they do not
wave back. i do not know yet
how a body becomes an angel but i am told
there is a process that involves submitting
all your poetry to a storm cloud.
the pit grow slowly. i recieve 
one white flower & speak softly to it
all day & all night. the flower speaks back.
it says, "let's go back to where
we came from." the trouble is
i do not remember where i came from.
so i tell the flower, "we are on a crossing."
by which i mean i came from a leaving.
the departure at the center of my chest.
& so, we walk along the edge 
of the most beautiful cliff. the angels 
stare down glimmering. 
my knees are stones to overturn.
the flower is alive & i will keep her
& one day we will sit here &
look at the world eating 
our ripe nectar spilling plums. 

mouth buffet

all you can eat of yourself.
a bone licked clean in the call-center.
what can i help you with? what can
i assist you in devouring? there are 
corn-on-the-cob holders shaped
like corn. a restaurant we go to
on my tongue where i can't explain
why i can't explain anything. 
a feral taste. holding a warm white plate.
the first time i met you i invited you
to see the amusement park by which
i mean my skeleton. tying ribbons 
to a tibula like a dead tree or a lamp post.
there is a fire. there is a man carving 
a great ham. i told you, "take everything"
& convinced myself that was devotion.
a serving spoon scraping the bottom
of a metal tray. hash browns. pancake mountain.
i used to have so much. i used to bathe 
in pineapple. now, i eat with tooth picks. 
cubes of cheese & single grapes.
i am pacing myself. how do you unlearn 
starvation? the times i called you 
& the phone turned into a cheeseburger 
in my hand. you didn't come. you were
boiling lobster. you were plucking 
turkeys of all their feathers. you were 
face-in-the-peas. spoon & fork in each hand.
i am still trying to teach myself 
there is more & that you didn't take everything. 
my adoration was cinnamon roll.
unfurled for your lips. sugar & cream & 
far far far too much. 

eclipse 

we took the chocolate radio. 
hid inside your cut lip. 
a plush little room of red red velvet.
this is where a holding is held.
sometimes i text the sun &
he responds with fire emojis.
i am laying on my back while
my turtle shell grows a satelitte dish.
watching the light become
a dark wafer. communion on the tongue.
this is the overturned stone 
with all the spare language beneath.
i have started saying "lover" 
when i mean "a person i have not
met yet." close your eyes & hide
the pearl. there is a demon who spends
all night trying to find just one
eye open. i gave him mine 
& he blessed them in the rain. 
i watch bars of soap become lungs 
& my teeth sharpen to pocket knives.
i often will play out scenarios of me
fending off an attacker. the truth is though
most people like to carve their hatred 
in the throat of their own god. 
yet, i crave worship. fill the bathtub 
with raspberries. my bed with newts. 
as the eclipse fades, i reach out
to hold on to it. my sewer sleep cover.
my beautiful thank you note. 
teach me where these shadows go.
i want to follow them. carry my
backpack full of bells. 

burrow

i go out in my april suit
to talk to the rabbit statues. 
they stare holes
in the house. i say,
"tell me your burrow." i stayed up
all night waiting for the moon
to crack. it did not but i felt
a severing as thin as a hair
in the walls of the house. outside
there is a crack that enlargens
every time i check it. i run
my fingers along the zig-zags
& imagine the house splitting
into two perfect pieces. 
splayed open like a doll house.
the rabbits know what's going on.
they have a little compass
in the back of their throats.
they chew & chew. i beg to see
the burrow. the knot of truth.
i am not a rabbit though. i am just
a frantic salad. i cut off 
my hair again & the hair becomes
a rabbit, runs far away. 
there are more pieces i could
divide myself into. find a crack
along my sternum. here is where
the two being come to merge.
i have a face of dust & a face
of fire. one always caused the other.
the rabbits are all gone now
but i know they can see me.
if i call my mouth a burrow
will i be able to hear everything
i wish to know? the rabbits are
too smart for my tricks.
i perch outside with them.
feel their eyes like stolen planets
still burning holes in the windows
for ants to climb through. 

loose door knobs

my hands fall off when i reach
for the parlors of your face.
come, let's sit & say exactly
what we need. i make a grocery list
& buy a shopping cart full 
of light bulbs. do you remember
how much you said you loved me?
lately, every door knob i grab 
comes loose in my hands & drops to the floor
as a dead rat or a dead bird.
sometimes, the creature will
scurry away to die in the dark.
the house doubles over. in the basement
i find the pelvis & disappear inside
one of the mickey-mouse holes.
have you ever seen an x-ray? 
we look like billboards. my life 
doesn't have enough doors & has also
way too many of them. sometimes 
i call a hotline & say, "would you like
to eat dinner with me?" you cannot 
push the world into a box & then
complain the world isn't wide enough.
i peer inside. ants knit the seams 
of my room. i kneel down
to peer through the openings
where there were once door knobs.
brass & plastic & gold & steal.
we called the hand man to fix 
a lock. he lifted a potato 
from his bag & stuffed it where
the knob should be. he said, "is this good?" 
i lied & said, "yes, that is good." 
i do not want to ask for everything. 
why can't a door just arrive?
lost wing. jaw of a snake. 
i'm never swallowed quite enough.