radio waterfall

i promised you too many clouds 
& now i do not have enough to last this week.
do you remember parking on the side of the wooded road 
& asked the trees for directions? 
they said, "come here" & i told you 
i wasn't ready to become brush. inside the waterfall 
a voice is always talking & saying i need to move on. 
it's inside the waterfall so i can't just reach 
& shut it off. deluge. wound. 
the waterfall is a girlfriend & a hitchhiker
& a god. often you speak to me when you're no where at all 
just to say something like "do it for me."

bird call

i use my fingers for dead trumpets. do you remember
when you tried to sew me a pair of wings?
your sewing machine in the living room. bowls fall
from top shelves. the birds are talking, love, are you
listening? they tear pages from bibles. i want
you to crave me like a mourning dove. i carry a nest
in my mouth, waiting. i do not want you to come home anymore.
you never finished the wings. instead we bought 
a doorbell & hung it from a great oak. do you remember
collecting my feathers? i remember you carving hollows
in the dry wall & saying, "you can sleep here tonight."
the finches do not forget. geese make the sky a movie screen.

night driving

my father & i both sold our eyes to crows 
but we don't ever talk about it. drive through
a field of black berries. soot falling
as snow. the cars headlights make pie crusts
in the wrinkled dark. i can never see enough.
too tall men on either side of the road.
they have antlers & dog faces. road signs 
that dangle & become old pendants long lost
& turned to planets. once, i drove for an hour
past my exit. pulled over on the side of the road
& wept until the moon vultures started to swarm. 
angels, knocking on windows. my father covering his face. 

touch sensor 

my house is infrared & a vigil. here comes
the hand we have left. jumping rope
until the rope is a snake. i hold my bones
in a wicker basket. nothing in the burn pile,
just sensitive & strange. i have a faux fur coat
& the sensor says, "you have no body."
a metal dector for a lover. passing under
bridges. tuning forks in the drawer. we do not
make the cheese board we thought we would,
instead assemlbing a tray of buttons. an app
will operate the staircase from now on. i try
not to take offense when you dont trust me by myself.

back rooms

i will take you with me behind the wall again. 
do you remember when we were children & 
the forest opened to a carpeted dream? you ran 
until the birds were loud speakers. grey men. beige walls.
then, we were home again. often, i will
still go out there, searching. there is always
another place underneath the underneath. 
i take a knife & claw at my bedroom wall.
find insulation. wood. nothing. nothing. you saw it too,
didn't you? where rooms followed one after another.
confessionals. funeral parlours. vacancies. i stare 
at my fracture. hear that same neon light humming.

purgatory bingo

in the waiting room we talk about super bowls
& rice makers. uncle jo is there eating 
a twinkie. then, the fine china is on the floor
& no one seems to know what is coming next.
there are bells on the walls. old ladies &
a girl i sat next to in seventh grade science class.
she's popping pink gum. there are teeth in my pocket.
i keep it to myself. maybe there is a list
with names. maybe there is another room full
of light & free toothpaste. i count none of my boyfriends
& all of my girlfriends here. an empty water cooler.
a television & all i can think is "soon. so soon."

stamp booklet

in the little stamp square i see a carrier pigeon
who has a letter in his mouth for me. 
the mail person at the post office window explains 
this is the "extinct animal series." all the stamps today 
are macabre. the last booklet he showed me
was of gravestones & the one before that, 
pictures of famous killers. the killers wink 
when you shifted the letter in the light. i guess no one
has time anymore for letters anyway. i mostly 
look in my mailbox for god. i settle on the animals
in the hopes this pigeon letter is something good.
in my car, i ask to see it & the bird swallows it whole. 

canopic jars

i pluck my organs like apples. might as well
get a start on sorting this viscera. 
i give you the head of anubis & say,
"let's begin." you do not want to be a priest
as no one in their right mind wants to be a priest. 
once i found a jar like this burried in the woods.
it had a beating heart inside. i re-burried it
but i still think about it every day. was it yours?
mine? i want to do the same with myself. scatter body
like squirrels sew nuts. for later. a liver beneath
a horus head beneath the willow trees. everywhere 
is a tomb or else, an afterlife, if you are ready.  

copper

where were you when the universe told
her green? i was shopping online. rings 
i bought you that gave use halos. radium 
on the ceiling like a balloon child. 
we jumped electric rope. shaved our heads.
lived whole lives as bowling balls. i wound
the sound of baseball bats around your finger.
let's not forget the veins of the house or
the trumpets that fell into the cellar 
while we were busy kissing. pennies in their
bunkbeds getting ready to be unused. i told you
"i wish it was gold." string rays fly over head.  

needle point

i sat in the rocking chair & became an anchoress.
cut threads like veins. the moon was a wooden hoop
pulled taut with clothe. what i am trying to say
is i need a plot of land to sew violets.
i need a window large enough to shatter 
when i throw a rock. i work all night. there is 
a ghost baby in a basinette. he is studying 
gender in the hopes he might get one. dipping needle
in & out of the skin. the clothe. the clothe skin.
there is always an underneath. dolphins beach themselves
& turn into women. i never said this was for you.
i meant only to keep busy. to stave off the curtains.