magickal thinking

there is a tulip in the space shuttle
trying to talk to me.
sometimes i will move my hand
& worry i have caused
a car accident. i never asked 
to have god blood. an ancestor
hundreds of years ago
bit the neck of goat 
& drank until he was holy. 
or else maybe he sacrificed 
a finger, i never remember. 
all i know is that the mailbox 
has been spreading lies about me.
once, for weeks, i thought 
the old ladies at the bus station
were waiting for me to leave
in order to start talking 
about my hands. i look for evidence
my thoughts are real. to be an oracle 
is to dig wells wherever you can.
as a child i was furious
& broke every fallen twig i could find.
that overturned a yard tree.
paintings fall from walls. doors
off hinges. i like to be 
a little wonderfully deranged.
i know if i were born in a different time
or just in a different place
there might be special kinds
of lock boxes for me. there might be
machines to try to unwind me 
from my skeleton. instead, i wander.
bless everything blue. 
i try to talk to glasses of water
& sometimes they talk back. there is
so much wisdom in the mundane.
everything is a symbol 
if you have a head made of jupiter beetles.
i catch the sun just right.
glint. gleam. then open my wings 
& fly in my madness. 

dust worship

i grind my teeth into sandbox. 
all the children bury themselves
& become plastic dinosaurs.
poetry is magick because it also
is always about transformation.
no one walks into a day & doesn't leave
on their reptile hands & knees 
praying to the shoe gravel.
once i spent a year living in someone's ear.
or was it their tongue? the two
can become the same & then you are
screaming, "fuck you" in an empty house.
sometimes a word would arrive
& i would have to kill it with
the fly swatter so none of us 
turned into a plastic bag.
please don't try to tell me
that you love me. i don't want
to be loved in this poem. i want 
to go outside & let a mosquito bite me.
watch my arm swell like there's
a pearl underneath the flesh.
then, work all week to release that pearl.
everything precious is prone to escape.
i build a shrine to dust. the wind comes
& takes the dust away. i start
inventing evil contraptions
that might prevent a future exodus 
but then i remember living on a tongue.
how it could be a dove or a snake
or a slide whistle depending on the day.
you cannot cage each grain.
the dust will do what it does.
it will leave & it will return to the floors
of the house. i lay on the hardwood.
put my ear to the dirt. i hear
it singing. a throat full of beads & pearls.
my blood is a shoe kicked on 
the side of the stair to get the mud off.
when you closed your lips
i used to see a moon on the ceiling
of your mouth. i thought
i could build a ladder of dust.
reach up & touch it. i imagined 
it as the texture of a honeydew
i never reached it though.

no toll roads

i no longer believe in gas stations.
i drive the car until it's a bucket
full of fish. park it & keep walking.
the highway says,
"motor vehicles only"
but i am an engine. i am 
an angel's little machine.
once, i accidentally put in directions
to new york city 
without any tolls. the trip was
eight hours when it was usually two
or three & it was too late
to change course
by the time i noticed. i thought about
how roads are false veins
laid like scribbles in the earth's
blood. turning around & around 
to point the right direction.
headlights boring holes
in the night's overdue veil.
the car died more than once
& i had to restart it. praying
to the gods of guts & gears.
there was no one else in the world
for those hours. only the twist
& the pinch of distance. 
i marveled at my gps.
asked aloud to no one
"what did people do before this?"
i wish there was more time
to be lost. i have not been lost enough.
i do remember print out directions. 
my mother pointing to an exit 
as my father drove us
to the beach for the day.
when i finally arrived 
i kneeled & kissed to the asphalt.
there were angels outside my apartment
eating the fingers of anyone 
who passed by. i offered mine willingly.
i said, "i do not believe in gas stations."
not anymore. devouring a fish raw,
the angel said, "you are not home."
angels never lie. i slept in my car
& pretended all night
i was floating down 
an afterlife river. 

motion activated light

i will know when you're home.
the geese will cut off their heads
& their bodies will fly south.
i don't have to tell you it's winter.
dead trees. coiled-fist leaves.
the television will spit rotten strawberries
from its mouth. i will not be able
to sleep. starting at the door
with an axe in my hand. 
for me the past is a place full 
of hay. mold & dampness. 
the driveway of my parent's house
used to have a lamp that spat light
when i returned. it pulled a shadow
from my shoulders like taffy.
trucks going way too fast 
down the country road. road kill machines.
the rabbits would trip the light too.
their little skeletons. once, a rabbit
who was struck by a car. the rabbit limped
& then turned into a bible. 
i have a hard time being holy
even if i'm dying. i brought carrots
to the bible. i prayed the rabbit would return.
tripping the light over & over.
you, my father, yelling, "stay still."
i froze in the glow. waited for the light
to stop. convinced myself i could
move so slowly the sensor
could not see me. i crawled 
for hours the short distance back home. invisible.
i felt accomplished. i know by the taste
of the water. the milk in the sky.
you always slammed doors. did you do that
to trip the light? did you look
for your shadow? did you pause
in the driveway & marvel at it?
when you are home i do not want to be.
i slip myself into the darkness
& make prayers to rabbits & doorknobs.
you are not home not at all. a home
is defined as your absence. here,
the lights do not search for bodies.
here, it is just my bones & my myriad of shadows.
i sit outside on a tree stump by the ghost moon.
headless geese fly overhead. 

every icarus

& the joke of it is
the sun is just a basement dart board.
this is a story about
who is a father & who gets
to be fathered. i worked
for hours in my bedroom
trying to build a pair
of working wings. i spit 
on my hands. i prayed
with saint cards. i sewed
stray pigeon feathers 
to form garlands. wrapping myself
like roadkill. all the while
my father stood in the doorway.
he took a steak knife
& carved "ungrateful"
into the wall or was that
my thigh? a thigh & a wall
are similar just like
an ocean & a driveway are similar
& a fall & kneeling.
i always knew i was going to
plummet. this is what happens
when you try to put masculinity 
in between your teeth.
i screamed, "mine mine mine"
as if i could wrench it 
from my father's throat.
he is the axe by the door. 
he is why birds die suddenly 
mid-flight. i am not a bird though.
i am a cherry tree or a loose veil cloud
or a boy just like every other boy
who lives inside a stained glass house.

ice road

i have no idea where
my manhood is going.
he's got cargo.
he's eating bbq ribs 
as he drives
& licking his fingers.
once, i shot him through the head
but he just kept going. for me
a gender is always something hunted.
i carry a pitch fork.
i set traps. i'll try 
the nice guy routine &
i'll put on a football game
& pretend to be watching.
yes we could get along.
maybe this is a place i could
settle into. then something brushes
my skin wrong & i am running again.
he needs to be useful.
that is his biggest flaw. 
utility should never
be sacrificed for glamour.
glamour is where
the witchcraft is.
he chooses roads of ice.
headlight like blooming skulls.
chewing the inside
of his mouth. everything is
a close call. a wife on the line.
the wife is me. i stand at the sink
& see the snow coming down.
manhood is not coming home tonight.
relief pours over me.
i get to be giddy. i get to be
empty of delivery. instead 
i get to eat the ceiling again.
when he gets home he'll ask,
"how did this happen?"
i'll wipe my chin & say,
"i was hungry 
& you weren't here." 

consulting the cards

i don't want to know the truth.
give me the cryptic ending.
there will be angels as pizza delivery drivers.
i clip my toe nails into the toilet 
while on the phone with
my ex father. he says
he misses me & i think,
"yeah i bet you miss 
having someone to chew on."
i plant my ears 
beneath the sycamore.
the sycamore groans & tries
to dig them up. no one wants
to hear what i hear. a chain saw.
a choking rabbit. a glass
dropped on the kitchen floor.
there are still shards of glass
deep in the flesh of my feet.
why don't i make a fortune emergency?
i plug the phone into a sap scab.
vibrating sun. false teeth in the mail
& coming soon (thank god).
there are not enough drivers
to complete your ressurection.
instead, i lay here 
in the freshly mowed yard 
& i think about turkish delight.
how i've never had it & probably never will.
sugar on my fingers.
my father is on the way 
or so he says
& i laugh at him because
he doesn't know where
to be on the way to. 
i could tell you
the cards promise a lit match
& a feast of quail eggs. i could tell you
they are showing a squirrel funeral.
it's all more or less the same.
the future has a piece of sinew 
in its mouth. my father is
not here. i am free to a good home. 

bildungsroman with strawberries & an ice pick 

we are too old to be children.
i steal the atmosphere 
& you steal the gun. 
i am falling in love 
too fast again
& we are in time square & 
i do not want to know who i am.
poetry is better
when it's not being sold.
that is why i sold videos
of my teeth online. 
there is always a part of your body
that will need to belong
to another.
this is for survival. 
when you spend too long
adhering to tenants you do not believe in
there is a rushing out of the self.
i washed the feet of men.
they told me i would make
a wonderful boy.
an antique market
on the side of the road 
where we ate grocery store strawberries
& made too many promises.
boyhood is a place where
all the pocket knives are born.
i would watch them emerge 
unbidden from the palm
of the man's hand. 
he refused to weep. we are driving 
away from our life & pretending
we have another. a hotel in the sky.
it lasts too long. you read me poems.
we argue about everything.
it is easy to fall out of love
when you have no money
& only jars of your own blood.
unscrewing the lid
to take a sip. garnet lips.
i used the rest of mine to buy you flowers.
they turned out to be
carnivorous. 
love me until
i am dust. rusted ice pick
i keep in my trunk. it wasn't for you.
it was for the winter. 
winter has six fingers. has a fourth
& fifth eye. frost on the windows.
waiting on your porch.
each breath a cloud. an angel.
do not believe for one second
you have become a human.
it is a process without an arrival.
here is where i learn 
to swallow a whole necklace. here is
where you apologize without apologizing.
i lock the door that night.
text god, "i am not your son."
no answer. you call eigthy-two times
& i finally pick up. 

feather pillow

all through the night
there are starlings.
"look a chickadee"
you say & then i'm there
standing on the bed
with a blow torch 
in my hand.
put it down slowly. 
i was the one
who went out to the coop
to pick the chicken.
grabbed them & stuffed them
into the nightmare.
we must eat to survive
or so i am told.
there are animals
who don't. butterflies
without mouths. 
i do not want to live
this life if it is only
going to be darknesses
like this. sometimes
i cut out my tongue
just to watch it grow back.
slug factory. 
i do not know
if there is a place i could sleep
in the way i want to.
there used to be
the old apartment.
with sun coming in 
every window. i did that
for you though. i didn't 
do that for me. tell me please
what does it look like
inside a feather?
is everyone laying down
& looking up 
through the leaves of a tree?
is everyone sick & in bed?
the pillow was not as comfortable
as you might think.
instead it felt 
like a body bag. i breathed in
the animal. tossed & turned.
a pocket full of change.
i want to lie down
but the birds keep plucking
at my strings & propping me upright.
wake up. wake up. wake up. 
i am the birds of course.

firework harvest

when was the last time your father
was your father? i was at a county fair
& i was a snail. he held me in his hand
& said, "i love my daughter."
sometimes a touch is a site
of fire. i watch the man run
with his red flaming baton 
to light the bed posts & send them 
into the sky. why has it taken me
so long to remember exactly 
all the places i have been severed?
once in a poetry workshop
a classmate lamented
"nothing has ever happened
to me" by which they meant,
"how am i supposed to write poetry
without trauma?" the truth is 
the county is fair is a place we've all been.
everyone has a father like mine.
one without eyes when it's convenient.
when you realize the truth 
is a lemon tree you have to buy 
a shovel. you have to go & talk
to the snails you once were.
rid yourself of salt. when was
the last time you begged? 
i don't enjoy the word "trauma"
i think it's used too broadly
to mean "bruising." i don't have
trauma i have a firework harvest.
i have a fire i walk with in my hands
& anything could light the sky up
with a flash of sound. i love my father
even though he one ate me
like funnel cake. once licked
his fingers. how is a girl supposed to
resist turning into a snail?
i watched the fireworks with him.
i always watch
the fireworks with him. 
gold & red & green. i swore once
i saw one that was blue
but maybe it was just
a ribbon cake. do not limit
the ways you write. do not believe
for one second that pain
is delicious. it is electric.
it is enduring & edible. 
i want to tell my classmate,
"would you like to borrow
my father?"