snake winding

lets take a walk in the python & cottonmouth.
my tongue slips out & says something
i'm going to regret. i hide chicken hearts
where ever i can forget them. under the pillow
i find a knife. it is not my knife. 
hasn't your body every knotted around itself?
we keep venom in a glass jar in case we need
to make an antidote. i want to be cured 
of all my visitations. the voices that arrive
with a cleaver in both hands. blood is snake
& so are my lips. rattlers signal the end of a color. 
goodbye blue. goodbye copper. hello viper. 

ghost houses

i feather & you collect me like kindling. 
in the country something is always entering
ghosthood. you take your flashlight & i take 
a crystal bowl. in the backyard, the birds die
one by one, dandelions. yellow & then
nothing but breath & then scattered. 
we hang ghost houses in the trees for the birds. 
tell me one creature who isn't in the process of returning. 
i sleep walk down the highway towards the water tower.
eat wild onion until my teeth turn to eggs.
hatching little spirits. we whistle 
& the trees whistles back.

it runs in the family

my father counts tornados with tallies that
he etches in a pillar in the living room.
i want to tell him he is so doomsday. 
the tornados are just trying to laugh & besides 
there's still water left. i got out to feed the tornados. 
handfuls of cherries for them to red with. these days, 
i red all the time. dipping my face in bruises. 
finding a wound in the dirt to talk to. i need 
a fresh destruction. my father eats new moons & then 
doesn't open his lips for days. what are you trying to contain?
if i shouted like i need to, i'd just disaster this house.
the forest would be five tally marks. 

inflatable planets

i shed my breathe like a buffalo herd.
being with you was rushing into crowded rooms. 
we sit in the yard & look up into the night sky's mouth.
i know i do not love you & yet here i am
with a candle & a survival kit, trying to future.
you can spit your soul out if you are not careful.
i fill a balloon with it. all the silk & the gloss.
how you used to put your fingers down my throat
to feel the sleeping animals there. i'd tell you
to "stop" & you would say, "how do i know
i'll ever see you again?" bullied gag reflex.  
this is how i made the planet, from my own pounding. 

crop top

my stomach is the playground where
i go to be feminine. if a garment could teach me
self-praise. i do not want to be celebrated,
i want to be indulged. drape me in honey combs. 
crack open the geode & feed me crystal & for you
i will do the same. my fingers in your violin. 
hairs grow like a thinned forest across my skin. i carry fire
in a plastic bucket. hold summer in a walnut half. 
blindfolded & following lavendar. there will be too much 
to eat. there will be no noise of restriction.
only the abundance we knew was there. to feast 
is to have a noisy body & still carve revelry from it.

fear of it being too late 

in the kitchen we trip on our own reflections.
on the wall, there is an old iron bean grinder
full of teal aquarium rocks. in each rock, 
a little version of the scene. this is the night 
the fridge stops working & i see my father furious-cry
as he grabs a pack of grapes & a baggie of lunch meat,
tearing the fridge's guts apart & saying,
"i can fix this." for weeks it had flickered 
& he had smacked its side. "piece of shit," he said.  
i had too many fingers & all i wanted to do was help.
a little girl. the holes hunger made in that house.
all our faces in the rocks. tiny desperate ghosts. 

electronic milk

i look for nourishment in mint wrappers.
forkfuls of flywings. a disciple of "not enough." 
plug a charger into the muck river & wait for my phone
to tell me i am a good little citizen. 
where i come from, a tank sleeps in the corn field.
the water tower is a beacon, a place
for lovers to crawl towards. nothing is better
than eating sugar packets in the yard. i do not want
to be sustained, i want to be consumed by static. 
an update informs me my life has been downloaded 
& saved to the cloud. am i relieved? the cloud is heavy. 
i am still snacking on whatever i can find. 

peacock seed

i was small when i planted the iridescent boy
in the back of my throat & walked around
like a jar of jam. everything sweet
has been boiled by sun or by fire. in the fields
we would work for hours harvesting tomatos.
they are the shape a heart should be. roma, heirloom,
cherry. from the dirt, i collected feathers too.
they were palm branches. lay me down. a divine is coming 
in the form of hair. there is no other body like mine.
i flock & fallen & fallow. deer watch as we work
waiting to become skulls. boys like me are all teeth
& then none. we have & are harvested. make blue of our star. 

decorative faux books

at my worst i am just waiting for you to enter.
hoarding my nothing like a hope chest. 
here is a dust jacket where i gather unkept promises. 
the shelf, brimming with letter "o." meaning "oh no" 
& "oh please" & "open me now." sometimes i glue my lips shut
for fear someone will ask me to tell them a story. 
really, the truth writes itself. i was made 
a conduit of searching. last year i had my palms read. 
her finger across my lines. 
she said, "you will. you will."
then, back at home, i could swear 
i looked at my hands & saw no lines at all.

poppet family

when i do witchcraft i often don't know
what to ask for. it is years of my tongue
being a bottled bird. tonight i sew poppets
of my mom & dad & brothers. i dip them in honey & 
arrange each in a circle around me.
knit promises into their mouths. they are saying,
"yes yes yes-- you are our good skeleton." or maybe
i do know what i want & i am scared to tear seams. 
in the kitchen, moths arrive like oldest angels. then, 
ants come to feast on the honey. isn't this always how it goes?
glistening & then eaten & then they find your bone. some day
i will have the courage to bind the poppets one to the other.