the trees grow eggs

& we were so unprepared. it is autumn &
when i walk, i try to catch as many
as i can. pockets full. hands full.
inside each is a dead angel. i do not know
what can be done with their bodies. 
at first, i tried burials but not the soil 
weeps with eyes. we should be more careful 
with yearning. if we are not careful it will be
the egg tooth in a space suit. here comes 
gravity. here comes a comet with your name. 
i can not try to save one more. but, there i am,
still running to catch. arriving too late.

chariot 

you bring me every wheel you can find.
the horses have long gone to drink juice boxes.
everything is one fire & i no longer want 
to put it out. i want to win something. 
we wear laurel crowns & sit criss-cross applesauce
on the front lawn of a dictator's house. 
when we say the code word "gold" we know
it's time to bury our hands. nothing to see here.
the time will come to race one another 
for the basket of half-rotten strawberries. 
i will win & eat them all myself. i have 
a chariot to keep alive. i can not be sorry. 

fertility clinic

don't believe every egg you talk to.
some might working to become lightbulbs.
i used to look in the mirror & see 
a family portrait. now i see windmills.
when i worked at the farm i would kneel
& shuck corn until i found one with 
a baby inside. then, i would take a walk 
& pretend i saw nothing. inside every bone
there is a latent ghost. i am haunted 
by houses that have yet to become houses.
walls turn white when i'm left in them too long.
i find an egg on my pillow every night for a year. 

cucumber melon

do you have a hair tie? do you have
any hair? i grew a stomach to salvage 
the day's bagels. cut my own bangs.
what else is an angel-killer to do?
raise your hand if you had enough to eat today.
brushing granola from my lap. a chipped black nail.
i would draw the initials of girls i liked
on the palm of my hand & close my fist 
until the ink melted unrecognizable.
shoe squeak on the waxed wood. a fish tank 
swimming with earrings. are you wearing that to school?
full length mirrors. the smell of her jump rope. 

pickling the photographs

i told you we missed the exit. drove eight more states
& then we snapped a shot of us beneath the belly
of a giant moose. all of you teeth fell out 
& we had to follow the trail to the valley of death.
i promised if we made it out alive, i would be
your daughter. a straw hat. a strawberry field.
nothing is forever but especially not family.
there is the immediate kissed on the forehead 
& then there is the mutation process. sometimes i think
how many times can i change my gender? i am a flipbook.
watch me rubber ball. this is not a picture of us anymore. 
it's a picture of who we thought we were to each other.

grapevine 

the wallpaper tells me we were supposed to be 
women. i wear a dress with a gun holster.
we fill the bathtub with red grapes
for mashing. i keep saying "girlfriend" 
& alternating between meanings. lover & almost lover.
the rocks in the river know what we came to do.
take our hair down. feed planets to the lion
until he is ready to sleep for another hundred years.
you feed me crystals. rose quartz & obsidian & sapphire.
hard candy-hearted. grandmothers come with glow worms
to light the collapsing house. i never meant to tell
but now look where we are. the world knows. 

reconciliation 

i have been trying to forgive you.
god rides in a little red truck. all the horses
are melted down for glue. we paste macaroni 
to make constellations. i used to be so angry.
that saturday after i had surgery when we sat
on either side of a match box & pretended 
i wasn't a wound. your smile is kneaded bread.
let's not be family anymore. let's be race car drivers
or ship makers. neither of us have the knees or genders
for becoming priests. i scraped my plate. 
painted you a portrait of us in all blue.
the apple falls & falls. i sleep somewhere else. 

skulls

in the bird garden the glass blower wears
a wooden face. is careful to talk sweetly 
to the fire so as to not lose his teeth.
all day he works making skulls: baby skulls
& dead men skulls & possom skulls. 
lets the heat shape each fabulation. this boy
will come to want an apple orchard 
& this person will always crave a balcony.
our wants are this old. yearnings from our makers 
& all the garden birds who whisper in the oldest langauge. 
he holds each skull before setting them 
on a mossy stone to be taken & put to use.

mother-daughter dresses

we put our faces in hat boxes after
the sunday service. everyone worth their soot
had been sacrificed to the father-maker.
at home, the clothe came like a dragon.
enveloped the whole living room. all i was doing
was trying to smile. the mirrors had grown eyelashes.
no more birds for the year. mother got the stork scissors
& promised she would be quick. being a daughter
is always quick. a chair with no legs.
empty dinner plates. sons in the fire place.
no more wood, we must use boys. she said, "now, 
they will know you belong to me."

sky saving

we went out with our ice cream scoops 
to pick favorite pieces of sky.
everything has been burn pile lately
& i don't expect many more years of blue.
the jars we use are worn & the sky goes in
like jello angels. all i want to is enough sugar
to last me the rest of my life. i wish there were still
phenonmenon that still felt certain. instead, 
i boil the jars. caught a cloud & a blush of sunset. 
in this world, there has been too much 
or not enough keeping. my sky belongs to me. 
that is, until it is night & i am lonely again.