seagull

on the board walk we say, "retro"
like it means tomorrow we will be shiny.
the day has webbed feet 
& all i want is to be 
the shell you search for 
in the wet surf. instead, 
everyone we find is broken.
jagged teeth of men
underneath the waves. 
someone stands on the sand bar 
with his arms outstreched
like he is going to be taken. do i
want to be taken?
i try to remember what hot dogs tasted like
as i walk. like snapping your fingers
& a blossom of grease. 
t-shirts grin with plastic teeth.
a dart game with giant dolphins as prizes.
no one is lucky anymore i think
except maybe the houses a block from water.
as we pass them i ask, "how much do you think
those are worth?" their owners 
don't live here & they don't believe
in sea gulls. i hold & ice cream cone.
the cream comes shaped like my baby face.
watching it melt all over your hands.
the sun says, "hell or high water."
we are sea gulls in our sifting. 
maybe there is a gem 
inside this dumpster. maybe a 
dead crab belly up on the asphalt.
finding another gull to follow
above the water. our reflections
like scars moving across a stomach.
we eat. burn in the UV rays.
a folded treasure map. a seafood shack where
we enter & the person at the counter says,
"we don't serve birds." the trail 
of feathers we left followed us
all the way here. shrimp standing 
in the display case like quotation marks
arounds the word sea gull. flying 
without any sense of when 
the next carnival will give us 
names we can use for a summer.
if i believed in gods i would have
bought less plastic. a beach towel falls
from my mouth & you fold it gentle 
as you always do. we sit 
at a diner made of fish bones.
eyes as dimes. "this was beautiful,"
i say to my own reflection
in a estuary pool. rustle of branches.
a devil in the trees licks his hands clean. 
you pluck me again. wash my face
in an outdoor shower as you ask,
"i wonder how many people
have had sex here?" the beetles
wish they were wedding rings.
my face feels like a motel on the water.
someone on every balcony.
watching the snow cone sun set.


 

shag rug

i took my purple & made a forest
for the house to grow from.
buying seeds at the grocery download.
a fork in the garbage disposal
which is better than in the outlet.
did you know there is a device
they will install in your closet now
that can take a vacation for you?
i buy the newest model of spaceship 
& try to essemble it myself.
a missing button. i stay grounded 
on the planet of the pull-tabs.
my screw driver is a father. my father 
is sleeping on the rug. is petting
the rug & saying when he was a boy
he dreamed of being american enough
to paint the grass whatever color 
his mother wanted. his mother is
a spatula or else maybe hiding
in the salt shaker. our salt shakers
are shaped like watermelon slices.
i bit into your shoulder like
it was a melon. i wish i had
a rind to lean on when everything
is aspirational like this. coffee pours
from the sink. we forgot we had this installed
& i am thirtsy. my wife asks me, "i thought you
were going to finish the spaceship today?"
i don't hear her finish her sentence.
i am already staring at the grill
& wondering how hot the sun can get & if
the sun has plans to die.
my wife is a blow dryer. 
i find a lucky outlet. pet the carpet too.
the back of a god or a brother.
we break bread like knuckles.
get to work in the shadow 
of a future purchase. i would like
one of everything, please. 

ornithophobia or fear of being carried away by birds 

i am walking on a length of floss.
yesterday, i took my shoes off
& stored them in my head.
believed my crazy was becoming
a new person. the outlines of strangers
always have wings & in my conversations 
with the hat man he says i have nothing
to worry about except for birds.
birds do not run in my family 
but once i saw my youngest brother
standing on a ledge & trying to fly.
when some people leap they become doves
& others become asterisks on the ground.
i am alarmed by my body 
& what it asks for. necklace of teeth.
grubs with their windowed organs.
i am less afraid of where they'll take me
as i am of the leaving. i imagine 
the world beneath my like a beach ball.
swallowing helium, i could just
become my own balloon. one of my friends says
birds were designed by the government 
to watch us. my fear is not contingent 
on whether or not a bird is natural.
if i'm honest though there is
a sliver of desire. i want to see
my life in minitature. i want to sell
all my clothes & wear a lovely uniform
given to me by the bird president.
who can i go to for permission
not to think at all today?
i am least worried about ducks
because i have seen their wood hearts.
watched as my mother carved them 
by the side of a mucky river.
song birds on the other hand.
they have a library of voices.
once a blue jay opened his mouth
to tell me i didn't love him
in the voice of my abuser. i covered my ears
& hurried briskly into a bathroom.
bathrooms are of course
the only place i am safe.
that's where the hat man 
keeps his wisdom. where the mirror
is also a watering hole.
elephants come. i dip my face.
drink as deep as i can. make promises
to myself that i will not & cannot keep.
"you will nail your feet to the dirt"
"you will not cover your head
as you run into the ivy" " you will
stop collecting feathers as evidence." 

footnotes

if i forget to tuck my feet
underneath the covers
in the morning the toads come
to mark me with their marginalia.
they right "we should go back
to the water." i lurk about each day
as if i'm not a conduit
for prophecies. i shave my head 
& watch the follicles fall
like stickmen. today i am also 
a stickman & i put my shoes on
to conceal the words of 
passing angels. i attract graffiti
&, along with it, all the angst 
of the world. sometimes i wake up
with a jar of eels sitting 
on a shelf in my chest. 
i lay still so i don't make fight.
there is also a beta fish beautiful
in my brain. i feed her gold flakes.
did you know there are fish 
in fish flakes? then again
we are all a little cannibal, right?
once i put my youngest brother 
in the oven & told him it was 
a play pen. don't worry. i took him out.
i take a shovel & go to 
where the words live like worms.
dig & dig. this place is my feet.
i am digging in my own walking
looking for a word that might mean 
"apology" but tastes like
a golden delicious apple. instead,
i find more amphibian writing.
"i am through with
my lungs" & "i just want to eat
a blue berry." our mouths are 
maybe our greatest limits.
i can't unhinge my jaw so instead 
i just have to hope when i tell you
what i need it isn't 
the size of a sofa. i wash my feet
twelve times because there is
no god & no apostoles
to do it for me. a flock 
of pigeons come to watch. i tell them
to save their stories for stone.
it lasts longer. they laugh
& happily eat as much crumbles 
as they can carry. every crumb
was once a stone. the lifetimes 
of atoms are like carousels.
i'm headed back to the deep.
a frog in need of water 
tells me, "i am through."
i wet my fingers 
& carry him to the lake.
he breathes & does not thank me.
i wasn't expecting him to. 
looking down i see the note he left
on my feet. it reads,
"it is time to stop." 
i close my eyes & pretend
i myself am just an alphabet
until the sun inverts 
into the moon. a quiet sliver.
my feather-cluttered night.
the world is cool. 
the beta fish thinks he's royalty.

pokemon card bible

i did not know how
to play the pokemon card game 
& i wouldn't have had anyone to battle with 
if i did. instead, we kept them in binders 
in the attic. dust on the shelves.
my pilgrimages up 
soft green carpet stairs.
i would sit & lay the cards out in rows
pretending we were standing
in a desert together.
then, later, inside a flea market 
& i would go talk to the bin 
of card board monsters. i didn't have
many friends. the ones i did 
had hair ties & knew how
to wear perfume already. i always felt like
i was in a play where everyone else had the script 
but me. i wanted to be told to run away 
like the characters in pokemon.
cracks formed in the asphalt 
& from them grew all my favorite weeds:
dandelions & ragged hands.
i asked myself if i
could be trained. 
as a ten year old
i was prone to fire-types.
whatever could set our dead dry lawn a blaze.
but i didn't want my pokemon to evolve.
preferred charmander to charizard.
i wanted to monsters small 
& managable. 
counting my cards at night.
savoring holographic edges 
& shimmering frames. i was convinced
i could stare long enough
to coax the creatures 
from their world into ours.
could wake up the next morning
& pack a bag & walk into 
a sherbert horizon. butterflies
drank greedily from our windows.
i was not a pokemon trainer
but i did have the cards
to return to. opening the binders
& deciding which i wanted 
to pull free from their 
plastic sheaths.

fishing line basinet

i remember being a trout.
how my mother wrapped me 
in newspaper. headlines screaming
"today is the last day."
once, inside my planetary egg,
i was just a diarama. miniature 
chairs & tables. bones the size
of ice skating rinks. children laughed
inside my walls. a tiny house 
is built on the outskirts of town
underneath the waters of the susquehanna.
fish gather. my family gathers.
fresh eggs blink. there is a moment
where an eye ball can hatch into 
a child. i cradled on all fours
to the surface. feathers in my throat.
writhing. the fisherman knitting cradles
for fish. the box of hooks.
he tests them on his own lip
& then does not know how to take them out.
i always wanted to be babied.
fed water as if i were truly
a gilled little girl. i had 
so much trouble training my lungs.
now they still fill with moths
if i'm not careful. wearing a door
as a necklace. the fisherman is not
my father or my mother. he is a neighbor man
with hands the size of hamburgers.
i tell myself i love him 
in order to make it to water again.
standing over me he becomes
tall & thin as a matchstick. 
the word "guardian" wavering until
it is just a tin roof. what i am trying to say
is i was hoisted from the water 
& asked to thank the hands that caught me. 
knuckles & gardens of fish tails.
a nursery with a resident box of lures.
i could never just lay in the field
because a red mouth was always
dangling just out of reach. 
come join me in my translucent cradle.
i am here to catch someone else.
wrap them in newsprint & tell them
exactly who i am. 

teeth-making angels 

once my skull was a venetian vase.
i held lilies in the before-life 
where everything was pooling with cream.
the sun was sugar & gummy-red.
great insects drank & the angels 
sat at sewing machine desks 
to make my teeth. sometimes i will
open my mouth to remember their craftsmenship.
i tell myself often i was constructed.
the thinnest nails. handfuls of clay.
a flock of ancient beings gathered 
to shape my spirit into another body.
they picked me up like a bed sheet.
all the while, fishers of men 
sat with their buckets on the edges
of clouds. i sometimes want to see
all the roots of my teeth. 
hold them in my palm & walk 
all around town. a ritual to summon
the before world again. everyone 
is always talking about afterlife
but i want to take a shovel 
& dig a way back. show me 
the origins of my crooked
dreaming the field of root vegetables.
wishing the carrots were golden. leading back
into a cavefish grotto. sight falling
like lemons. i do not want to be
this tethered to my skull. 
i want to open my mouth
& gather lilies like i once did
in the palace of a feathered god.
they work long into the darkness. 
etching each tooth crevasse & fold.
it is not a toil to them 
but a passion. some work on boar skulls
others snakes & other humans.
when a set is complete they whistle & stand.
a team circles them to inspect.
sometimes i still feel them
staring into my almost head.
that is when i spill. all the stem.
filling me with mouth. their instructions.
"bite down." hard enough to press teeth
into gums. hide them like headstones.
me, a soft little peach. 
the vase full of roots.

taranula chapel

i wanted a place to worship.
became a cricket to sit inside
the spider's hunger.
rubbing my legs together 
& singing about the oldest shade of green.
once, i had a pearl necklace
i wore to every single rendezvous
not knowing it was really a string
of eggs. spiders hatched at once
& consumed me. i was divided betweeen them.
perched in the corner of the room
& waited from memories to come
like flies. sitting alone with a television
& asking it to give me penance.
i buy a gold chalice to fill 
with sugar. instead of sleep,
i prayed until the ceiling opens
like an eyelid. i want to have
a family as myriad as these legs.
i go beneath her. eight pillars of salt.
her thick abdomen as cathedral.
angels that buzz & look for rott. 
holding a candle in my mouth.
the flame, a pair of wings. i learned
how to fly from jumping off rooves.
hearing my bones snap like
stained glass pitchers. sitting still,
the landscape becomes a pop-up book.
not real on top of not real.
god eats plain bread at a table
in the darkest pantry. the pillars move
& are now her legs. her eyes, a bowl
of washed plums. i bite into one
& still cannot sleep. behind my own eyes 
are visions of her lineage. 
church after church, 
filling my bedroom with legs.
i plead with her to show me how to beg 
because what is devotion
but a catelog of bending? 

the moon is talking on tv

we already put our fingers in the honey
haven't we? some days i repeat the phrase
"left to lose" without the "nothing."
pairing my socks & pretending they are
truly lovers. i do not want to take a walk
or pretend a painting on the wall is beautiful.
i have plenty of friends who are planets.
in my chest, i make a patio & then add
a table & chairs. we are drinking
lemonade made from powder. 
we are eating fruit snacks. the planets say,
"let's buy a shiny new." don't tell me 
you don't love a sentence fragment.
i prefer to speak with broken glass
in my teeth. it's more natural that way.
on the television, the moon speaks of 
foot steps & dreams. desires to be 
a field of legs. i tell the moon
even though she can't hear me,
"me too. me too." promising to never take
a skunk cabbage for granted. 
the planets want smaller lives
just like i do. i buy a bird to put
inside a cage. i can't stand it though
& i release him. he flies around the room.
starts bringing letters from dead stars.
they are bitter & angry & say things like,
"it is all over." i crumple them up
& light them on fire. there is too much &
not enough burning. no one asks to be
a star. the tumbling heat. 
everyone gazing. plants hungry
at your ankles. wearing a collar & leash
held by a gravity god. i want to be
the size of a marble. to be in your palm
while you walk down to the river.
wade in & become a dragon. the moon
makes promises she can't keep.
then, pulls the clouds over her face.
the television goes static along with
the sky. my friends set to work 
holding their breaths. i try 
to make a life without enough. 

video game song

the birds spoke dial tones 
all through the morning
& i thought "i should call you."
instead, i put on my headphones 
& pretended the world wasn't
turning to pudding. i took a walk
& ambling along a dog opened 
it's mouth to talk to me even though
clearly i was trying to be alone.
sometimes i walk around with a shovel
in case i need to dig myself
a burrow of aloneness. not yet, robin, not yet.
instead, i listened to the dog who said
"it looks like rain" over and over.
i find only my own repetition tolerable.
the cats were barking. the children 
chattered like squirrels. i never trusted
our parallel nature. how my house
had gone so many years without 
shrieking. who doesn't have a scream
waiting in them after all these years?
i decided my voice was now
a purse. i filled it with coins & phone calls
i could no longer make. a duck call.
a deer whisper. i wanted you here
so that i could apologize in a language
neither of us could understand.
it is probably best done like that.
at a certain point all words are just
kinds of water. frost on the window.
dew on the grass. i went up the mountain
insearch of a lion. needed to hear
what she might sound like.
reached her lair, stepping over the bones.
she had your voice. just like
i thought she would. i said, "i should
call you." she said, like you did,
"i just can't do this. i can't."