VR brother

in game mode, we talk about girls.
he says he is waiting for perfect legs
& a jar of tongues.
really, i stand in the living room
knocking over glass vases.
shattering. meanwhile, in VR
i am just trying to hug him.
the headset sings a song about distances.
since he converted to digital
we have almost nothing
to say. i tell him it is raining
& he changes the sky to be purple &
heavy with clouds. he says, "what rain?"
this is not dreaming. this is
emptying each room on the front lawn.
i'm thinking about how we used to
talk through the dark
of our shared bedroom 
as if night were a curtain.
him asking, "are you still awake?"
me pausing before whispering, "yes."
i ask him what he does all day 
& he transforms his hand into a blue jay. 
in VR, nothing is perminant
but especially not mistakes.
he runs away & returns. he chops down
a tree out of anger & instantly 
it grows back. he says,
"don't you wish the rest of the world
was so forgiving?" a part of me does.
a part of me wants to burn
my house down & turn around
to see it back. but, then,
there are the pieces of a wreck.
how, even if they are ash, 
they should be taken. held.
he shaves his head. he eats with his fingers.
tells me he is in love with
a patch of dandelions. they are a woman.
again, we are talking about girls.
always, we are talking about girls.
the specter of me having been one.
how she is downloadable now.
lives on a USB drive. wonder if 
she's met anyone. when i take off the headset
he doesn't say goodbye just
"what if you stayed?" i think about it
until the moon is the only eye left open.
i think of putting my life
under my tongue. walking around
with blue jays for hands. sitting beside
my girlhood & putting a piece
of caramel in her mouth. 

i buy stamps w/ ur face on them

going to mail a frenzy
& all the windows are tinted blue
to try to make me calm.
i want to know how to feel anger 
without letting it destroy me.
i rode a bicycle with no wheels
to ur house & waved my arms
until my shoulders throbbed.
my body is a shelter 
where my fury sits alone 
at a dining room table
& pretends to be at bliss
for the others. there are no others.
u were probably sleeping. u were
probably not thinking about
how ur face shows up everywhere for me.
in my knotted hair, ur nose.
my knees bear ur instructions.
come here come here. the mail person
asks me if i want any stamps 
& i say "could i see what you have?"
i have lived inside so many stamps.
cut my life into transience.
today i am thinking about
the train that used to know my feet.
used to say, i promise, long & wailing.
then, he is showing me 
booklets of mushroom cloud stamps
& crowbar stamps & suitecase stamps &
a fire escape stamp. i ask
anything else? & then there you are.
a dozen of ur face
replicated. perfect for sending
a feather to the tax collector.
yes, i bought them & now
ur house is on fire. the news
arrives now only in touch. 
i press my hand to the tremble
& hear not good. i wanted to buy 
hundreds of sheets. send ur face
to every doorstep. would that be revenge?
no, it is something extra.
but don't worry i didn't buy more
than just a sheet. u smile at me
& i tell u. now at least 
u will learn how to carry me.
ur face winks on the stamp. 

audiobook family

in the romper room
we kept all our ears on the shelves.
our tongues were out to pasture.
so, when i spoke, 
only yarn came out.
we repeat stories in my house
each time the details becoming
more like glass. my father promises
he was a soldier in the first world war.
tells me about gatling guns
& the trenches' spoiled dirt.
he crawls into headphones
just like me. i am a grub
or a worm. my brother lights 
the tree on fire & calls it a prophecy.
i try to put it out but just make it worse.
the story goes like this
"we are from
the time of antiques. a rusted telephone.
grinding eggs into dust." 
for hours we call for our tongues 
but they never come back.
i ask my mother, "tell me a story
without your lips." she closes her eyes
& i close mine. we share a little
dark kingdom where every mushroom 
is a telephone line to the underworld.
in the whole house there is
only one plug & we fight hungrily for it,
especially at night.
teeth like airplanes. 
clamoring to hear what the wall
has to say. gives us stories
about drowned girls & hitchhikers. 
when i get my turn 
my ears hum. i forget to worry
about my tongue or drawers full 
of spare teeth. i am just
a pocket knife being opened 
& opened. wooden dining room tables.
my father, digging a trench 
to sleep in. i go with him,
carrying my ears 
in my backpocket. 

elbows 

i go to a butcher
to buy my heart. he sits 
at a card table with his pigs
talking to them 
as if they're brothers.
come to learn they are in fact 
brothers. my elbows have been
growing barnacles
& briars. i lean to much
on anything & everything i can find.
going out to the fields
i see the butcher as he burries 
the cow bones & the pig bones
& the chicken bones 
so they don't haunt him.
it is too late for me. 
every few months i roast my heart
& have to find a new one.
i lived for years with
a plastic bag blowing around
in my chest. this morning i 
just want what is easy.
see my reflection in a jar
of pickled hooves. wonder if
i could peel my elbows off
like the skin of an orange.
i don't want to hinge
anymore. just want to lay flat
& talk to the animal shapes
in the clouds. the butcher 
is not my father but i am 
pretending he is. i want a man
to survey me & tell me
i look just like i'm supposed to.
sometimes i buy mason jars 
to put my anger in. hope they turn
to raspberry preserves.
instead, they reek like vinegar.
jitter on their shelves 
waiting to scream. i have not screamed 
in years. in the fields
all the bones are screaming.
i wonder if that is what it would take
for me to let go. all the meat
peeled back. just the raw bone
strewn about. tall grass 
wears ticks like necklaces.
says "hush, hush," to the bones.
the bones don't listen.
oh how i would love to be told what to do
& not listen. i rub new ointment
on my elbows. it's supposed to
make me smooth. i'm not even sure
i was meant to be soft.

harvesting

again, i plant my eyes 
in a clay flower pot.
he asks me,
"what kind of fruit do you bear?"
from my ribs, watermelons.
on the right night, no fruit at all.
i am a crowd of asparagus.
wait for orchids.
all my daughters are ticks.
try to drink the blood 
of my knee caps.
then, a dandelion flock.
selling their dresses 
after only one wear.
baby birds fall from trees
like diamonds. i carry 
a can opener down into hell.
what will be exported 
from my mouth? 
a tooth, like a tail light.
my backyard full of glass.
the broken parasol.
girlfriends wading into lakes.
my ghost has a lighter,
walks out into a drying herd
of wheat. soon to be fire.
that is what i am. soon & sooner.
paring knives skittering
across the beach
on their toothpick legs.
did i say paring knives?
i meant plovers. i always get
those mixed up. what does it mean
to fed one another?
sometimes, i turn off the lights
just to look for another mouth
i haven't traced yet.
teaching me to swallow,
he placed a plum in between my teeth.
i dare myself to eat all 
the pits. where i die
a grove will sprout & fight 
for oxygen. a boy will sit
beneath me. eat more purple than he should.
stomach full of my fists.
fluttering with my anger 
& my exhaustion & my love.
each morning
he will open his mouth
& find a flower
on his tongue.

electronic bird sanctuary

we visit abandon
with feather handfuls.
a guest book of fingers.
haven't your hands ever
flown south for the winter?
the last bird lives
inside a labratory 
where, in virtual reality,
he thinks he's flying.
once, while rubbing my back,
you asked if you could plant a seed.
i refused but, while i slept,
you did it anyway. 
wings grew. i cursed you. airplanes 
mistook me for their children.
my talons glinted
in the light of a fake candle.
when i say "sanctuary"
i mean a museum. the difference
between being quietly watched
& watching quietly.
i flew above my life. you watched me
with binoculars. 
my eyes have cameras inside.
i take a video of you 
for a future generation
who wonders what we did 
to remember the birds.
we talk all night 
of building a structure for ghosts
to roost. instead, visit again
the mechanism. rivers of wings.
calling like children.
everyone is hungry. branches sit
like mother-shoulders.
a handbag full of bird feed.
holding hands underneath
a rusted sun. the birds 
are not real. have not been
for decades. i have a man come
dismantle my wings.
he does so with his bare hands.
i do not tell you. 
you have more seeds & more men.
the sanctuary glints.
a door knob the size of jupiter.
no one is awake but me.
i enter & i sit on the ground.
robotic wind. chain link gods.
the birds gather to greet me. 

 

cow-tipping

the field was full.
in the night i became
only my hands. a scattering
of stars. the moon's sideways grin.
how my father would
sip from green bottles 
until fish lived in his eyes.
the corn field's song in summer
was one of insect legs & violins.
i only wanted to know the animals.
their hooves in the dirt. 
barn's neon glow. walking towards them
thinking, "i wish i was a farmer."
romanticizing roots & dirt. 
the farms around where i grew up
are centuries old. graveyards sit 
in the center of most. crooked-tooth headstones.
i ambled through a little cementery 
to reach the cows. their eyes 
had birds perched inside.
little cages. a downpour of feathers.
putting my hands on their backs
& considering pushing. the plummet 
that could follow. bundles of bones.
my heart coming apart
like a ripe orange. how could i 
have wanted so badly 
to over turn their knees? 
was it my own disasters 
boiling over into finger bones?
i wept with the cows.
all the meat on their bodies.
the jars & jars of milk.
my own body, a crooked-tooth cementery.
a bottle-opener. i asked the cows,
"tell me how you sleep?"
the cows replied, "we do not."
together we ate hay. watched as the moon
folded up like a dinner mat.
somehow, i woke up in my bed.
feet still kissed with soil.
the smell of wet grass
beneath my nails. nothing
was overturned. all hooves earth bound. 
stepping through hushed breeze. 
grass moving with spirits.

eating lava

tell me who you are
when you reach air.
split-skeleton red.
we sit in a circle 
& wait for the earth beneath us
to fissure. erupt.
sometimes, my chest becomes
an ocean. all the cruise ships 
circling. the sea monsters
that will soon devour them.
my hunger is for something 
deep inside the earth.
for heat & fury. are you not
angry today? i wake up 
every morning with 
a snake that lives 
inside my skull. venomous.
i try to coax him out my ear.
this is what we walk around with.
a photo album of parking lots.
when we were magma 
we talked about nothing
but angles. spit into 
each other's mouths.
then there was the blue
of babies. rattling engine.
islands are born 
out of this kind of grief.
i am overflowing. 
imagining the ground i will
stand on. today they tell me
it is going to rain bullets.
tomorrow, i am supposed to
return a call on my answering machine
from a boy whose face was eaten
by locusts. he says,
"anything you can do to help
is appreciated." i take then
a spoon from the silver set
& walk barefoot to the scab.
pick it open to see
the lava. smoke billows
as spoon meets heat. 
a bite of my scalding worry.
i am ready to be fire.

cubing

it was the first
four-sided august.
fruit grew that year 
with perfect right angles 
instead of round as it always had.
people remarked, "this is 
so much easier to stack."
i wondered, "what did we do differently?"
walls of apples & walls of lemons
& walls of peaches & plums.
citadels of fruit. praise effeciency. 
made everything cubed.
cars & weddings & wives.
people used to sit like crowbars 
but then they ate the fruit 
& could only use right angles.
tightness & delight. 
a shape is a way of being.
my shoulders used to
hold a bundle of the earth.
frenzy. every round object 
became too round. rolled 
down our giant hill towards 
the square ocean. all beaches 
that used to be jagged &
jutting, now sharp. 
seam between sand & surf.
i held onto a marble.
a single glass marble i had found
when the sun was still a sphere.
light glinted across its surface.
in the dark of my bedroom
i contemplated whether or not
i should swallow it. imagined it as
a little ripe berry or 
minitature planet. i have always
wanted to devour my life. 
the ghosts that eat planets.
four-walled rooms & four-walled hallways
& the growing towers of fruit.
we are fed aren't we? are we?
i place the marble on my tongue.
i am waiting to be a rowboat 
or a thumb. dear god,
what i wouldn't do to become
one of the hula hoops that used to
rush past on its way to oblivian. 

 

meat garden

i prune sirloin
& shave petals of bologna 
from a great corpse flower.
watering can of my own blood.
i am learning what it means
to worship flesh.
where a cut begins 
if you want to be precise.
muscle & beef & bone.
the pigs that speak in latin
& tell stories about their oldest.
hooves in a pot of water.
the broth that rains in minnows.
we used to speak with greens
in between our teeth. 
but now but now but now.
wilting orchids. those are eyelids. 
to become carnivorous
is a process of nesting dolls.
call me a chicken coop
or a crowded coat room.
elbows planted in the ivy.
the garden gathers thresholds. 
hangs roots from the ceiling. i trade
an ankle for a bulb.
salami roses & pursed lips.
not knowing what to eat & how
to eat it. this is the story of my body.
a mouth in a room of hearts.
cast iron pots collecting grease
& a hand beckoning, "sleep right here."
my stove has a necktie. calls my name.
tells me, "i know you are hungry."
grass grows thick as the hair
on my knuckles. the garden
asks me to eat.