pheromone machine

i fill my bike helmet with wildflowers
& drive across the bridge to where
all the bodies live. bodies in their
holes in the wall & their tree knots 
with their laundry flapping in the wind.
i take my eyes off & put them in my pocket.
speak in poems with the hopes that
doves will come & flock to my mouth.
to be hungry for hunger. to want to be
a jewelry store inside someone else's
imaginary wedding. come & get me 
i think & static leaves me ears. swarms 
of bees that live in my heart making honey
for no one but themselves. i do not know
what i would do with a body if i got one.
i guess rather if one would have me.
they make devices these days for people
like me who want to be a salt lick.
deer ride motorcycles. an owl pulls out
a gun & i raise my hands to say,
"i am just in love." he sighs & scoffs,
"as if!" i know it is true. love is not
a barrel to sit in but the balloon string 
you hold & follow. i am not good at that
or whatever else bodies do. i come home
without even a freckle. an arcade replaces
my house which is alright by me i guess.
the bodies come & go. my bones were made
for doorways. for going this way. for
spitting on the side of the trail.
i hold out my hand & a wasp stings me
right in the middle of my palm. 
stigmata comes in many forms i guess.
please though, if you hear the machine 
call me. call me & say, "i love you"
even if you don't. especially if you don't. 

hourglass w/ nails

i have watched a day turn into 
a pile of rusted nails. the teacher
puts me in the "game over" chair
& i watch as she makes my classmates 
play musical hats. when the music stops
you need to find a hat or 
you'll be turned into a beta fish.
there is a little boy in a cage
we call the class pet. he eats food pellets
with his hands. the window is 
a television. once we had a snow day
& all of us ran outside. feasted 
on frost & icicles. our parents were
busy talking to their lawns & so 
it was just us. the teacher said, 
"fend for yourself" which i heard as
"build a pie to sleep in." the hourglass sits
on the end of her desk. whenever she wants
something to be over like a rain storm
or a child crying, she turns the glass over
& tells the subject, "you have this long
to become a loaf of bread again."
the butcher's kids sit in a separate room
so they don't cause any damage. 
blood in their pig tails. spare knives 
in their lunch boxes. i have always wished
i was something dangerous. instead,
they handcuff me to a computer
& tell me to type until i know
where all the keys are. i am convinced
i won't ever know. the hourglass 
grows legs. a centipede. i crawls
across the wall. no one tries to catch it.
after the day is done i always stand ringing
like a struck bell. i tap on the telephone.
call my grandmother who lives
inside a pomegranite. she says,
"don't tell them we talk." i nod & say,
"of course i won't" even though
i know for sure i'm going to confess 
everything to the hourglass 
if i ever get time alone with it. 

toothless

i look for my fangs 
in the roots & brush of the old trees.
mouth made into 
punch bowl. candy dish.
i laid on my back & told everyone
to take their pick. dry fingers 
& damp fingers. the woodpecker
& all of his children. who doesn't want
a relic of another? like in the middle ages
when they harvested bones & flesh
from the bodies of saints.
i am far from a saint. but i am a body.
i am a garden full of weeds & worms. 
full of shards of glass 
& a dead apple tree that bears 
wedding rings & bells. i scavenge 
in the knots. all i want is something
sharp enough to bite a hole
in the wall. escape paths. i curse myself 
for all the ways i'm made myself 
into a nesting ground for others
but never myself. i said to each 
"here is a tooth." i could not
ask for them back so i needed 
something new. fangs. if i have to
i will use pocket knives. i will 
crawl on my belly with the snakes.
rattle for a heart. i am trying to blame
those who took my teeth. to be precious
is to come piecemeal. i know
i was never whole. i do not need to be.
the fangs come delivered by a hoard
of ants who just stripped a fox skull. 
wiping their mouths. two sharp points of light.
i lift them into my skull. marvel at them
in my reflection in the dark lake.
stars like freckles across my cheeks.
the ghost of the animal makes me promise
to keep these in my skull. i tell her, " i will try." 

butter makers 

i talk to the cream about divorce.
about severing. this is not science
this alchemy. transformation.
the cows who come into the living room
to play video games & eat sour cream
& onion chips. butter comes only
from the hard truths. the running-start
sentences where your tongue becomes
an aluminum bat. taking a swing
& missing. people are always hurling
apples at my head. canteloupes fall
from the ceiling & that is how i know
my father is home. saw dust on his back
from building coffins. every family has 
someone who builds the coffins
& someone who makes the butter.
i am often the someone who makes
the butter but if we're honest, we trade 
our roles if the sun is sick with strawberries.
i am a fan of everything stale. leaving
the butter on the kitchen table 
until it is a shrugged-off gold. knife
i keep in my pocket. you always want
the butter to be easy. you think it should be
but then it's melting into your skin.
soaked up by wheat toast or a tenderness
you didn't expect from the microwave.
melting the butter into a bridal shower.
into a baked loaf of baby shoes. worn out.
worn too freaking much. i do not want
to find myself again kneeling beneath 
a beast & waiting for cream. the cows 
say, "it was you who said you needed us."
they kick over the mailbox. they break
a window. i put a pad of butter
on everyone's tongue & for a moment
the world is still. there is a jar of nails
on the mantel. the cows stand 
in the yard watching us. it's my job
to make peace with them. i fill a bowl
with honey & sing until they return. 

jelly jar

let's fill the starwberry 
with all our hammer heads.
the blinking street lamp
finally executed by a middle-schooler.
someone asks me, "what do you do
with all your anger?" i boil it down to
guts & seeds. steam on my glasses.
my mother would talk 
to each berry before it became
a sister. i collect the jars. harvest them
from the den of a politcian.
he feasts on paper machete birds.
before i go he tells me things are
looking up. i try to avoid talk
of the sky. the sky does not grow 
brambles or burs or grapes & blueberries.
the sky is a place birds go
to make escape plans without us.
you don't need to toast or anything.
a spoon is enough to carry a knee cap
into your mouth. sharp & sweet.
no one puckers like they used to.
a wooden spoon can be a femur 
or a family. i come with the jars.
we boil them clean & give them 
their first confessions & communions
before they are ready for the rage.
pots & pots of it. taking the sun
& rendering it a fresh scab. wiping lids.
you be the jelly & i'll be the jam
or else the jar. is there always a vessel?
carry us into the next moon. 
i scope out my insides. cup
after cup of sugar. there i am 
alongside the gooseberries &
the orange finger nails. we eat 
until we vibrate like television static.
lightning storm flosses its teeth 
on the roof tops. the quiet pop
of a jar's lid. before we feast best we can. 

newsprint 

i call you a headline to get your attention.
come on & stocks tank. a share holder
is the last living member of his species.
tomorrow we will commemorate month
of months. a place where we can
representation ourselves in a strike.
the oldest woman alive is selling 
a new flavor of cap'n crunch out of
her boat house. people gather to watch
a corpse flower bloom. it is new years
or it is not. it is christmas again or it is not
& a food drive for our kindergarten troops
is all we have to do to feel good. canned
sausages. canned pudding. a world record
for the largest can of baked beans. middle schoolers
pay off their teacher's medical bills 
by auctioning off their fingernails. we all 
are doing our best or so i am telling you
because today someone set fire to 
a beautiful tree we used to love. i once 
returned to a childhood playground
years later just to find a stump where
a hearty oak used to stand. i smelled
the stump. a reporter held a microphone
& asked, "have you died yet today?" i had not
until that moment. a sound bite of my saying,
"let's not be too worried" when i most certainly 
should be very worried. a new drone 
delivers chocolate to a sea monster 
on it's way to rip open a peaceful.
the fig tree doesn't grow in places like this.
we sit in your grandmother's living room
& wrap each dinner plate in newsprint.
on the television a celebrity is 
a memorializing. casket. bag pipe.
the plates are pristine. never used. 
we keep & keep. we do not talk but sometimes
i move my mouth along with 
the television host as he says,
"a hurricane is spotted off the coast of florida"
& "but there is some good worry." 

aubade for tornados 

the fossil footprints bring 
their whole bodies. here is where
land opens like a hot dog bun. 
pressing a fork into the sun
to smear yolk over our skin.
you once told me that you 
could smell when the wind 
was about to go out for blood.
bolder grey sky bruising 
with a star beneath. we held
bow & arrows. shot out the eyes 
of an old god who was peeping in
on our froot loop breakfast.
sang like a smashed radio.
tin & string & sour. milking 
the old cow as she dreams
of wings. flying elixir. crawling
into the stone basement where
the house collects all its sorrows.
we hunker down in the vertabrae.
light matches to see glimpses 
of one another's tangerine faces. 
peeling skin free to taste 
each other's sweet flesh. marmalade.
wheat toast. the clouds forming
a crown of wildflowers. laughter
of the harpies. the day breaks
with the help of a can opener.
prying open the lid. here comes 
the legs that snap the windchimes 
from their nooses. 

clouds in the attic

i teach my tongue how to fly
by watching the crows 
in the alley. send each appendage 
to it's private heaven. i am cutting
as many holes in the wall
as i can. picture me as a vapor.
picture me as a body spray.
i crawl on hands & knees up the stairs.
i am only six year olds & in the living room
my father is making monster noises.
the clouds speak with voices 
knit from spider webs & ice cream.
vanilla warble. a mummified bird.
i sit in the clouds & talk about 
meteor showers. ask them if they remember
what killed the dinosaurs. they insist 
defensively that they had no part in that.
they don't understand i'm not accusing them,
i'm trying to learn if i might dissapear 
the exact same way. history has
a way of doing sommersalts
that turn into tires down the back
of a mountain. the clouds are by far
my favorite guardians. they say,
"look at me, i'm now a hippo"
& "look at me i'm fractured skull."
they feed me jewels. brush my hair.
then, hold my hand 
to walk me back downstairs. i ask,
"when will i be allowed to separate my body
into so many beads?" the clouds lie to me.
they did not say, "never" they say,
"elsewhere. elsewhere you will be like us." 

funerals for teeth

goodbye to the choke of cherry pits 
& knuckles. how we chewed through
every ceramic plate the angels handed us.
bit down on gravel. road a bicycle 
into town to burn down trees
at the park. a basketball sun smacking
the raw spring dirt. come & show me
where you plant them. your tooth.
canine & molars & bicuspids. 
i will take you to the masoleum where 
another girl made me into a wind chime.
kissed the face off me. we robbed graves
of their teeth. tossed them at passing cars
like wedding rice. the dead laughing 
toothless in their sleep. i take mine 
& burry them like squirrels hoard food
before the first frost in november.
one here & one there. one for me to find
in an old pair of shoes. another in
the medicine cabinet to remind me 
i am an assembly-required human.
one. just one, i plant like a peach heart.
i water it with sparkling soda & push 
chocolates into the dirt. you have to promise me
you won't try & find my tooth.
some days it is the only thing that
keeps me going. my little future life.
one day it will bloom. will it be
a green leaf? a head of hair? a finger?
i am not sure. all i know is this little self
loves to sing but only when it is dark.
we go to drink the moon together
from coffee mugs. cream & sugar. sweet. 
tell me then, how do you tend 
the run away parts of your body? 
you do not have to show me where
you keep them. i just want to know
if you kneel to them like me. 

pin holes in the plaster 

the puncture is almost large enough
to walk through. poster after
poster. paper machete rib. i spend hours 
pulling pins from my bedroom wall.
have you ever performed archeology 
on your own face? pix axe? brush?
i find all kinds of relics. my old life 
standing in the corner with 
a pair of sunglasses on. who taught you
your favorite disguises? i hold
every thing together with thumb tacs.
arm to shoulder. band poster 
to my back. i would turn & turn 
in the nights here as if i were a water wheel.
window full of polished stars. seeing
the bare wall. the beast's belly.
all the holes left like little eyes.
i mistook them for doorways but 
there are sights of vigil. they say,
"goodbye beautiful thumb." i say,
"good morning eyelash." putting tongues
into trash bags. i should not have to move
ever ever again but i know i will.
i know there will be more faces 
from which i remove the lips 
& let them encircle me. i run my fingers 
over the raised spots where each 
wound is left. one of them 
starts to bleed so i hold my finger there
until the small trickle of blood stops.
i step back. i might be selfish 
but it is hard to imagine the life 
of a space after i am gone. my ghost
still there wrapped in birthday cards 
& blurry photographs. i exit
through the narrowest wound.
i want to say i carry nothing with me
but i carry everything.