why i use it/its pronouns

because i am the hive 
& the ant hill. because i am
the broken cup we found on the beach.
how we marveled at the handle
still intact. edges rounded by salt water
& seagull gossip. because sometimes
at night i walk out of my body
& go out to collect the stories
of the rocks & the stones.
because once i had a police offer 
stand over me & laugh & say,
"what is it?" i hands were bleeding.
did he not see my hands were bleeding?
because a child is 
a graph of grief. or, at least, i was.
each day another fissure. learning the world 
was somehow too small for me.
i spent whole weeks with my feet
not touching the ground. 
a doctor told my parents
with his worried-man face,
"we are concerned." because i am 
concerning. because sometimes 
other children would ask me out
as a joke. i wanted so badly
for them to not be joking. because 
i know wanting to be wanted. because
i am an architect of yearning. because
often my eyes fall out of my head
& i have to chase them. because
i am human. because i am not.
because most days when my body calls to me
i do not answer. 

bottomless bathtub 

the sound of my eyes kept going. tub drain
speaking in radio talk voices. here we go again
with the desires for purity. as if the bone
could be all i use to live. the little costume i am.
a grinning sky. washing machine
sings to my underwear. i want to soak
but the tub fills with blood. on another night
it might fill with ants. i prefer the blood.
at least it is my own. counting birds
as they enter through the window 
& deliver their warnings of the day.
"you neighbor might burst into flames"
& "you might not actually be in love
anymore." i tear them up. eat them 
like popcorn. sooner or later i know i'm going
to have to go in there & let myself
become the abyss. fall through holes
in fishnet stockings & blinks of bad men.
it is so human to always dream there would
be an arrival. instead, i am told the bathtub
just leads to more bathtub. not a nexus
or a molten core. just on & on.
once i saw my mother as a handful 
of clay. she was sitting in a shallow tub.
it's always not enough water or too much.
i kneel at the lip & try to empty the basin.
handfuls & then buckets. poured 
onto the floor. seeping through 
to the living room below. unchanging.
there are surely sharks down there 
& the eye of a monster. i just want 
a skeleton to xylaphone myself all night.
you are not awake so i don't tell you any of this.

putting on the burning building

sometimes the suite 
is the place you go to die.
i watch a hallway become halfway 
to the old church's cellar. 
a priest is trying to kill a bat
in the sacristy. i am the bat.
i get ads on facebook that say,
"were you abused by the boy scouts?"
the boy scouts came into by bedroom
through the window for a badge.
i used to crawl into graves 
at the graveyard & ask a friend,
"can you make arrangements?"
in the mail. a secret admirer 
sends me a card that says, "die flower."
he didn't say flower. i shouldn't
assume the gender of all antagonists 
is "he/him." when did a pronoun
become a piece of furnature. 
the english language  kicks itself
in the shin. i buy swimming goggles
with no intention of entering a pool.
you never know though when
you might be presented with
an opportunity to swim with whales.
i wonder if the whales know
about 9/11. maybe they do & think,
"i am glad we don't have buildings"
or "what a way to write a story."
sympathy enters my blood stream
through a bend straw. i call
an old neighbor to make sure
he's still alive. he is & does not
remember a thing about me.
you can put out a burning life with someone
but if you don't keep sharing 
granola soon you will just be 
marbles to one another. the suite 
is made of brick. the ants in my house 
own their dirt more than me.
i have an impulse to destory things
& say, "look now no one can have it."
banishing spell on myself. the flames
in the closet. it's time to ignore them. 

monster

i am used to putting my mouth in a jar
& sending it down the creek.
it is always best not to scream. sadly,
that is what you always do & i have to
fill your mouth with aquarium rocks.
maybe some people are just more numb to disaster 
than others. the first time i saw a monster
i was two. the shadow came & spoke all-night horrors.
a monster is in the window 
& i ask you to pull the curtains shut.
out of sight. out of mind. always on the other side
of every threshold. grapes we share
from the big bowl on a popcorn night.
in the closet there are monsters 
& on the tv & inside my jaw.
one drags a big log & cuts a rut in the earth.
another buys a gun from a roadside stand
as if it were an ear of corn. a monster could be
in a family portrait or in the fridge.
you tell me you want to move
to somewhere safer. i do not tell you there isn't
a place without teeth. one crouches 
in the basement where i sleep & i ask him
to please stop chewing bones 
all night. i am not indifferent to monsters
but they are not all the same. some just need 
a bit of terror. others want to burn 
the neighborhood down. who am i 
to try to tell the difference. all i can do is 
unfurl my face. the one full of pins & 
terrible eyes. tell the monster,
"here is mine." my monster i mean.
the one i take care of. the one you don't show me
& the one i don't show you. the creature softens
knowing he is not alone. i put the face away
& i make the monster promise
not to tell anyone. you call from the kitchen,
"are you down there?" i do not answer. 
i pretend to be asleep. 

purgatory baby

tell me what you do while you're waiting.
i like to scroll through every disaster
that's ever happened. i like to throw
rocks at windows & hope that one day 
a glass will shatter & i will slip inside.
on the monopoly money is a picture of
my last crush. he told me he would
find a way to buy me a new jaw.
the deer come & sharpen their teeth 
on dead trees. the grim reaper kneels
& plays dice with some slugs. i tell him
i do not need the company. he laughs
& says he just likes it here. some travelers
pass by with their backpacks full of tea cups
or pots & pans. they clang down the trail.
the travelers like to stop & promise me,
"this will all be over soon." i do not know
what "over" means to them. often,
waiting is a part of me. an organ. i don't know
what i would do without my waiting.
i have never had patience. not for tangerines 
or strawberries or cicadas. i eat everything
too early. sour fruit. early birthdays.
when darkness falls i like to remember
what it was like to really be in love.
summertime. wildflowers. your porch 
& the sound of wind chimes. the present 
is always an unsturdy place. this is where
i was born. between chasms. waving down
cars & passers by to ask, "is it time yet?"
they shrug. keep going. the trees catch on fire.
i cover my ears & wait for the morning rain 
to drown out the radios. you used to 
collect the wind for me. now, you have
a hearth of your own. people don't go backwards
& i stay here. weaving baskets to fill with 
stray antlers & teeth. 

fire hazard 

i was always told to 
not talk to cats in the spring. 
they go around 
staring at houses 
until one becomes a tower of flames.
some things are not as flamable
as you might think.
take for instance a dried rose.
those hold on to their secret oceans 
& the fire does not take hold of them.
paper though. paper is a dying tongue.
gone into ash. scattered & swallowed 
by the roots of trees who remember
the first time their necks were cut
for the sake of our memories.
i am not opposed to 
most forms of destruction. 
of course i am terrified. i am always
terrified but stopping a forest fire 
is like trying to crawl backwards
to be a seed again. i know 
a bird carried me in his mouth
& tried to decide where would be best
to devour me. fire hazard is 
not a warning but a state of being.
what comes with having a body
often mistaken for a book.
have you ever plucked a strand of hair?
ever been a prophet. i shaved by head
down to the skull. i am a gourd
hollowed out & full of teeth.
i rattle on a day like this. i take my lighter
& singe the tips of my fingers.
of anything though a seed pod will
burst into fire. crackling like fireworks.
all the little blinking unfutures.
then, the light scent of abyss.
smoke like a tossed veil. 

permission slip

i ask the angels if i'm allowed
to use the bathroom. they laugh
& say, "in another 800 years."
my gender sometimes grows
too many fingers. sometimes
too many legs. i take it to
the witch doctor to see 
if he has any use for all this excess.
he locks his door & peers
through the peep hole.
he says, "i don't take your kind."
often when people ask me
what i am i lie
& say, "a condor." at least them
i could skim the cream off the sky.
of course they can tell 
i am not what i say i am
& so they either 1) start a world war
2) pretend they don't see me.
i'm always telling people.
don't invest in an invisibility cloak.
just get yourself a wrong gender.
of course, any gender
can be wrong if you leave it 
out in the sun or feed it
too many olives. my problem was
i talked a mushroom & the mushroom
asked if i'd ever considered 
selling my soul. who wouldn't
sell a thing with soo many annoying bells?
i find myself asking more 
& more. i come to a pill bug 
to see if i'm allowed to cross 
the path. the pill bug asks
for my crossdressing permit
or a permission slip from my parents.
can't he tell my parents are
too busy burying my shoes?
in the end, there's always going to be
check point where the guard
looks the other way. 
i say, "wouldn't you like to know
exactly how a mouth becomes
a butterfly?" they say,
"yes, yes please." we go 
& breed silk worms. harvest 
their poetry. sew a gown 
fit for any androgyne.

a new algorithm 

i tell the ghosts my old poetry 
& they knit backwards a self
whose eyes float
like buoys in a bowl
of fruit punch. the sun is
spitting out copies of herself
only they are slightly off.
one sun sells popcorn. another sun
scorches the earth. the truth is
i am a manufactorable 
kind of face. all it takes
is a woman tied to a chair. 
this algorithm prevents loneliness. this one
sews up the holes where 
the bones have started 
to wonder off. only, often,
i think i am less defined by what i am
& more by my absences. 
where does my head roll off
& become another red rubber ball?
here is how
my teeth left to pursue 
new lives as jupiter beetles. 
i do not want to be measurable.
taking a pocket knife 
to every number & soon
i am standing in a vat of macaroni. 
boil the moon. boil
the fear that's left. i kneel
& pick up the algorithm. it has feathers &
far too many throats. 
it says, "i want to be measurable."
i say, "i want you to celebrate."
so, i carry the algorithm
down to where the sky 
kneels to the earth. we eat sherbet 
& i lose a rib. the algorithm promises 
to learn about the smell of lavender.
to listen to techno pop.
thread a needle. i cough up 
some confetti & we are joyful. 

fear of being left out

the street lights around 
having a coven meeting with out me.
i hear them talking about 
the length of shadows they can paint.
mostly i believe everyone 
has a mouth i cannot see & they are using it
to have a joyful without me.
there are underworld words 
everyone is speaking, saying,
"let's go to the grotto
after he-she is in bed." i want to
be in all rooms at once. 
to be summoned like a demon
in a circle cut into the ground.
when i was a duckling i always heard
the other kids playing with their
digital dogs without me. my dogs 
were sick. hungry. the light
of my DS screen making a statue
out of me. no one teaches you
how & when to be alone. instead
they tell you to make cut flower lives.
here is the vase. go & fall in love.
i eat soil. drink water from the hose.
make phone calls to my father
that he does not return. he too
is having a coven meeting
by the light of the waning crescent.
tell me, how did you learn to belong here?
do you belong here? 

fire / side

coming to the mouth of the demigod
i ask if there is anyway we are going
to have a fuel prices. the earth splits open
& bats come out. listen to me,
i have never once seen a man not drive
off the edge of the cliff when given a chance.
i carve my name into every tooth
so that when they come, even if they take
everything, these will always still be mine.
to claim is to become. to become is to 
resolve to another licked envelope.
sometimes i mail petitions to god to ask
if i could try over again. if i could ride my bike
across the river of feathers. a stoplight bears fruit.
we all gather & eat quickly, knowing 
the cops will soon come back to make this illegal.
joy comes to me when i am close to 
a fissure. hair falling out. ferris wheel 
splitting into pieces of the pie. i do not believe
in taking anything back. my tongue is 
a terrarium lover. we will make 
whatever language we need to make sense
of what the big voice is going to say next.
the radio grow frog legs & tries to run away.
i pick it up. decide it is my child.
bottle feed it until the day is a bent nail .