when i am a fifth grader

i eat everything america & wrap
my voice in cylophane. the window
is a parable of snow. opening my desk
to find a president & a biological specimen.
outside everyone is rubber. drawing chalk lines.
pencil sharpener. i ask to go to the bathroom
& the bathroom vibrates static.
a police officer crosses his arms & points
to an empty chalk board. i nod like i understand. 
i make friends with dead birds at the playground's edge
& admit to them, "i don't know what to do 
at recess anymore." the birds say, "neither do we."

walking sticks

sometimes i am a television antenae & sometimes
i am just the branch & no visitor. when you
hold your leaves do you think of eye lashes or blades? 
i think blades. alone in a night alley way, i tell the darkness, 
"i am not a gender, i am just a pile of sticks." 
we live mimicking the wind. swaying like pendants, 
the walking sticks know how to pretend to not be creatures. 
i ask them, "then for who do you throw parties? do you feast?" 
they do not speak. they are hoping to make me think 
i am just talking to sticks, which is possible. 
what would it take for me to not live for my camouflage? 
i want to wear my body. i want to transform into branches. 

punishment lever

i wanted the sweet amphibian bones
so i pulled & pulled until the whole world was lightning.
a draw bridge opened & closed like a mouth.
who are you talking to? there is no one else here.
the cold front is going to bring dead jet planes 
into the sky. i spit my gum into a corner until
it resembles a face. if we were brothers, we would
have run away already. instead, you ask who i am to you
& i say, "i am the fear of starvation." poison in my fingers.
i grab whatever sugar finds me, no matter the aftermath.
a terrarium can become comforting. i have my glass life
& you have yours. just one more. just one more. just one more.

i'm at a loss for words

i'm at a loss for words about 
did you see what the whales
are doing? in my bullet proof vest i went
into the school yard of my dreams.
there, they say every wound is a firework. 
i celebrate. i celebrate. holding my escaped uterus.
then, the tv became a siren so we carried it
out to the front yard in order to sleep.
to you & yours & yours & yours 
& whoever's job it will be 
to hang the moon when i am gone.
these were precedented times.

caesar dressing

tell me how to eat mania. to take it in. 
i ride my boat onto the shore of a plastic island
& say, "i love you so much." piranhas swarm 
like school girls. pigtails & purses & 
sitting alone at the lunch table where demons 
gather & tell me i am visible. lately i have 
considered exiting only between the prongs of a fork.
wearing an ice berg. fill my pockets with anchovies
to free in the bay. saying, "go be homeowners."
their eyes staring back at me. shredding moons
for fringe. the fish are a universe. 
i am just the digital pasture flooded by cream. 

disposable television

i star in a grand moment & everyone claps
& says “i would like another.” splitting a bag of chips with god.
wiping our hands on our thighs. it is a marathon.
out behind the house i tend my empty screens like graves. 
see my warped reflection there; the onyx dream of a prophet. 
instead of payment for my body, i accept donations of fear. 
what will they see me as if i? an angel asks another,
“did you see the performance?” driving to your recording,
i used to pass through a town & think, “if only i was from here
then i would know what it feels like to be captured.”
put me on the screen & make me iridescent. the mountain sits.
static on my tongue. we walk between the emptied.  

mermaid

i spent all night binding fish until
they lay still in the water like a photograph.
i held my breath for nineteen years always waiting
to wake up in the river. surface is a place 
where you finally inhale or else bury yourseld. 
swimming, the sun is a bear's maw. i roast a rainbow & devour
as if it were the day's catch; this is what a promise is good for. 
singing comes from all my drains so i plug them with socks. 
it's august so the grass begins to tell rumors all night. 
"the poet is really a girl inside a boy inside a girl."
in response, i cut my tongue out & release it into the creek. 
cross my legs to picture the fin but it doesn't come. 

ridding

i wished i could paper-airplane my face away. 
then, all into the night, my sleeves sang 
like song birds. no sleep. you were promising that
we would have the big big house & the icing.
licking my fingers, you told me i wasn't a lady.
i looked down to find myself in the body 
of a feral child. all my words turned to beetles
& crawled out of my skull. i believe in
ice berg poetry. how a word can surface
to show a deeper depth & a danger. i crash cruise ships
into trees. no one is on them. i am a wad of pink.
yes, please, swaddle me aluminum & call me never ever ever. 

teeth restaurant

to learn how to eat, the great dead dog
walked me down to the diner. you were there too.
it was neon as all heavens should be. 
i saved my state quarters for this kind of angel. 
offering bowls from bike helmets. we took turns 
pleading for spoons. silverware of all shapes & sizes. 
the waitor asked if we were sisters or lovers. 
i confessed "we are neither." i wished we were lovers. 
you insisted on eating with your fingers,
plucking teeth from a golden plate like turkish delite. 
then, feeding me & asking "whose dog is that?" 
"what dog?" i lied, stroking the dog's back. 
 

flight simulator 

i was the sky you were pretending to navigate.
eating bagged peanuts & talking about
the next destruction. i used to never
lock my face. i let ghosts come & go as they pleased.
now, i have a ring of keys. i add a new one every day 
so the true key is harder & harder to find. 
looking down out the plane window at a bruised knee, 
clouds all around i watch an eagle die 
& fall as an envelope. meanwhile, the mailmen are searching
for the house we used to live in. now, a leveled field.
A rust broken pipe still protruding from the earth.