self-portrait as a cockroach 

i frenzy in the sugar sweet 
beneath the fridge. run from every leg.
swallow crumbs like manna. 
my eyes, two tails-up quarters.
when i fall in love, i bring with me
the rubble of choked cities & dust song.
i saw the bones of a god. bathe my self
in the after-shower glowing blue tile bathroom.
i divide. as many of me as i need
to tell a story. skirt the hallways 
asking for another crease to press 
my body into. my skeleton glints 
in neon over-head lights. i remember
when i was small. the size of a grain
fo rice. i eat like i can chew
a hole in the world. a place for us to escape
to a land of edible lovers. instead,
i look for warmth where there is none for me.
motors & gears & grease. the back of 
the cabinet where fingers reach.
i am accustomed to screaming.  to pointing.
there is the monster. my antenae twitch,
catch another ghost's hymn. i can never tell
if the shouting is from the alive
or dead. they are one in the same
to me. i follow the dark to a place where
everything is cool & unmoving.
belly of the house. no one is there but me
or so i think & then another of us
& another. the whole knot, jostling
for a finger nail's worth of safety.
i have ached for that. i am always so hungry. 

for joan

we put our gender in armor 
& tell it to fight. a museum blooms
every day beneath my tongue.
it is there i meet you in the middle ages.
girlhood always becomes chain mail.
the sword, caught in a net
like a great fish. hold your weapon 
in a way that lets them know you 
cut your hair & fed it to the dragon.
walk as if there is no fire that 
plucked out your eyes. i am here to tell you
there is a cave by the ocean. you must walk
until the sunset endures & rings 
like an altar bell. there, girls like us 
live like sirens. we do not fight for men
or with men. we are men. the kind
like blown glass. our bones iridescent.
catching the light of a fragile star.
we take turns undressing & knighting 
one another. cool metal on bare skin.
no one has to know what it is 
we become without the armor. 
helmet of crystal. i too have seen a skeleton
shatter as stained glass. when god talks to you
he does not remember where you came from
but where you are towards. rays of light
that protrude from your eyes & mouth.
a halo coming in the form of a song bird
perched in the tangles of our short hair.
the battle is over. there are only prayers
for the golden masculinity. the one 
only we can wear. 

maypole 

my phone grows insect wings & whispers,
"it is time to be a garland." i follow
the scent of flowers to a static-scrubbed field
where everyone was born from the severed head
of another. the maypole arrives;
a thorn in the side. burst from
someone's body. we quickly forget them 
as they're consumed by vine. when i was a boyfriend-
girlfriend we used to go & eat wild. 
purple berries full of bees. his fingers. 
gasoline of the highway by the trail. is nothing
sacred? him picking me up like a jar of pickles.
a door floating in the air. in the creek. 
to be young is to circle like a shark around
the world's axis. there must be something
someone to devour? he bit off one ear 
& the other left me to be a may queen. luna moth.
motherload. milk maiden. coming to the spot
where everyone goes when the good thing
is about to spike. all love is a mound. or, at least,
it has been for me. we are climbing & i am carrying
all the promises in my rib cage like parrots.
finally, i realize the maypole is a spine. not yours
but mine. all the boys & girls & monsters
orbiting like faint moons. gravity tears 
buds from their necks. we kissed as much 
as a day could hold. each press, the spurring on
of another blossom. have you ever seen 
a maypole past the equinox? have you ever stood naked
in the forest? he was there cutting down a tree.
he told me he would not. he couldn't stop himself. 
now, the maypole says, "i am different." 
talking to your own body as if it is 
a grandfather. "good enough. good enough."
to survive may & maypoles. do not tell me
i am in love again. do not tell me 
this is not my skeleton. sky full 
of unanswered texts & headless birds. 

re-basementing

sometimes i open the door to the cellar
to find it full of thimbles or jars 
of peanut butter. the basement wants
to swallow our ankles. hoards history 
like a museum. smell of earth & worm worship.
the children go then to do our work.
lift everything again for the depths.
find messages in bottles & jars
of baby teeth & braid of hair
shed by travelers. everyone knows
a basement is a place a monster goes 
to undo his skin. a place where banshees
let their tongues rest as newts & snakes. 
where fathers take their children to teach them 
about saws & hammers. callouses 
that grew like beetles on our backs.
he ate handfuls of dirt. fed us the same.
you can only repeat the nightmare 
so many times before it becomes a place.
i basement myself once a day at least now.
embrace the violet & terror. a basement says,
"you are going to need to change species."
i pour out all the plums from my feet.
sacrifice a bird to keep the abyss from
opening wide & gash-like. find zippers
in the soil. where to pull & reveal
a bag to sleep in. a guitar case.
witched instruments that play. the worst was
the time it was full of mirrors. so many
version of my fear dancing merri-go-round
in the dark. hoisting each & making sure
they did not break. we burried them
beneath the catacomb tree. insects still burrow
to go & look at themselves a thousand ways.

air conditioner graveyard 

have you ever seen a building
turn to graham crackers?
mush of earth & knuckle.
riding the train through every electric forest.
the birds we used to wind up 
& let go. do you still think about
how we ate together? little wedding
at ther wobbly kitchen table.
taking out organs & placing them
on the table. my stomach & spleen
& ovaries. these all belong to you.
knive sharpener. the time the air conditioner 
almost plummeted to the sidewalk.
living above the world & waving.
wondering whee they go when they die.
a field of broken metal & muzzles
where the air is perfectly cool.
i am old enough to feel how the earth 
has shifted. this winter it only snowed once
& when it did i felt relief. 
the storm where the alley ways turned
to licorice. you wondering if the trains
were still running. a match stick.
a microphone. have you ever found yourself
in front of a crowd, wanting to tell
more of the truth than you should?
i miss our life. i walk barefoot 
in the machine heaven where 
all the birds lay still waiting for
someone to twist the peg
in their backs so they can live again.
face down. featherless. featherless. featherless.
asking the air a question as if it were
an eight ball. "do you remember us?"
"do you remember us like i do?" 

icicle 

in the face of a bicycle spirit 
we waited in the grocer alley
with empty milk bottles & a knife.
the ceiling fan grew icicles 
& we watched as even those became teeth.
dear brother, how are we 
going to build a house from all this?
we tried to take make the home
safe for angels. wearing sunglasses
just in case they came & spit
their celestial light all over the walls.
once, we took a family portrait 
& there is a girl in it with five
extra eyes. the girl is me. she lives
beneath the sink & i come once a week
to give her another box
of raisins. you can live on nothing
but nostalgia. that is what we do afterall. 
opening the winter in a can. 
give me back my baby teeth. killing
fairies not out of necessity 
but out of anger. how dare they 
hoard bone? a television full
of mice in little costumes. posing
with the mannequin sister. doing her
makeup. brushing her hair. tell me,
will you help me pretend we are alive?
i used to invite the stray cats inside
to watch me burn pages of 
moth-smelling books. the icicles 
grow to the floor & become columns.
o colosseum. o air conditioning. 
let's not argue anymore. 

22 love poems

/
we will see if i get there.
this is not a promise. 
know that i do love you enough 
to teach ground hogs to talk. 

/
you face is a lunch tray 
where i come to eat
with my fingers. 
do me now, i lay on my back.
let you feast off my shoulders. 

/
the numbers are talking
to one another & saying
we are fated to fall in love
& burn down the museum.

/
do you remember that weekend when
all the stores were closed & we 
couldn't find anywhere to 
call our masoleum.

/
i thought we were tails
of the same rope.

/
a love poem is like a shoe box.
you can use it to burry a dead chicken
or you can use it to fill with jewerly 
you used to wear.

/
i promise you there is more than enough
for 22 but at the end of the day
we all have limits. my tongue is often
busy being a salamander.

/
there might never be a time
i can tell you how many planets 
i have hunted for you. killed.
devoured. milked. instead,
i kiss the back of your hand
until it becomes a mailbox.

/
let's get ice cream to watch
the show. angels sewing new trees.
god in his boxers scratching his stomach.

/
everyone means something different
when they say they don't have a father.

/
close but not close enough.

/
i sometimes play dominos 
with the dead. i'll lay the pieces 
across my chest & wait for them to come.

/
love is only fun if it's destroying something.
if it's tearing the family apart. 
juliet swallowed a sword & said,
"i am divine."

/
it's not quite there, i know
but as with all things amorous
it will have to be enough or else
in my mind i will build a cathedral
to it. i will say what we had 
could turn the sun to stone. 

/
you write your name 
on the roof of my mouth.
i am a beech tree. i am a bed sheet. 
i am a salamander. a lunch tray.
fork, pen, & spoon. 

styrofoam garden

tell me blossom eternity 
while the landfill labors like 
a femme sisyphus. broken nails 
in the fresh soil. a flag worn like a dress.
we go to smell the wrappers 
still sweet with sticky bun. do you know
how long you will take to become air again?
i fly a kite made of only take out boxes.
the angels take turns spitting
in the river. we drink from hampster 
sippers. beautiful little animal. i planted 
this kind of farewell so we would
have a place to meditate & by meditate 
i mean panicking in quiet until
the quiet is so loud it eats your face.
haven't you ever used a foam cup
as a telephone? to my ear. whale song.
rotten teeth. broken-foot birds.
i sew my trash as if i'm going to be here
when the plastic bottle finally sighs
& says, "goodbye goodbye." what is
a garden but a place to come & be betrayed.
snakes twist around our ankles 
& i am always careful not to step on them. 
i am not mary or holy woman. i am 
a demon working trash bag of genders.
the trees bear cups of coffee. piping hot
only in may before the first 
terror-filled thunder storm. cracked knuckles.
the glamorous gods. won't you come 
& starve on endings with me? i don't want
to miss a moment of this our decomposition. 

spin cycle

in the washing machine basement 
everyone is asking for rebirth. 
it's just out of reach. soil & must that stays 
in clothing threads. gasoline. grease.
i try again to scrub out my blood. bleach.
a bruise opens like a garden on my knee.
cinder block.  cemenet wings. 
i run out of money for another wash.
cull the ground for beetles i can employ
as coins until a mouth opens in the ceiling
to rain down everything i need.
wonky corner chair where a mother
is always sitting & sewing together 
cockroach wings. i used to believe 
in cleanness. that another could be 
made fresh & new. now i see sometimes
the world becomes bone-deep. 
outside even the moon has smudges
& smears. mud tracked on the ceiling
from when we tried to be ghosts.
a little girl runs back & forth in the room.
catelog of orphaned socks that want
to turn into mice. when i open 
my bag of powdered detergent
i breathe in the story of clothes lines
in a field of perfect flowers. even the dandelions
have been growing with two heads. 
mail boxes in the lobby sing gregorian.
i pull my clothing guts from the machine again.
toss them in the dryer. hope they come out
new garments entirely. maybe a pair of 
iridescent pigeon wings. 

crochet planet cozies

i pull a thread from the beard
of a dead satellite dish. they bloom
all over the apartment buildings 
& thin kitkat houses on my block.
despite being ghosts, they still talk
to the planets. all week they've whispered
"cold cold cold. they planets are cold." 
i can't imagine what it is like to be in space
without a jacket. once i left my coat
on a plane home from portland & i imagine
that is what they feel like. watch
a tutorial on how to knit a cozie
big enough to hold these massive 
gumballs. someday i know a beast
will come along big enough
to eat us all. chew us until we're pink.
mouth full of burning stars.
until then let's be comfortable.
i buy slippers online & wait for 
the box to arrive. start crocheting
every night. sleep is for those without
existential dread. i'll dig in the yard
& find a new pair of eyes if i need them
to stay awake tomorrow. for now 
we have to dress the planets.
i notice they shiver, shaking in the sky.
"there," i say, as i dress each one
like a cookie jar or a teapot. 
they say, "skull skull skull." i do not know
what they mean. i feed them a packet 
of dice each. ravenous for chances.
some of them still believe one day
they might hold life. mars & her fantasies
of foot falls & birthday parties.
i will not be around to see that but
i tell her i hope it is marvelous
& it's true. i hope it is.