talent show for malfunctioning species 

we all watch the fireflies
swell into lightbulbs. a round
of applause for everyone who 
can't sleep tonight. my brother & i
take our opera glasses & watch
as the birds outside try make 
a phone call on a stolen cell phone.
at some point in our lives
we are all thieves. better now
than later. i have been using 
my tongue wrong this whole time. 
learning to cartwheel,
i watched trash cans in the wind.
there is something otherwordly 
in everything but especially our trash.
the theater is empty-seated 
& no one has eye lashes enough
to survive the next few silences.
all i want is to be magnificent.
is that too much to ask?
a knot of snakes are trying 
to write their names.
in the attic i'm still making
a pair of wings i can use
to escape whatever catastrophe
asks for my teeth. no one is clapping.
the spotlight makes a circus
of shadows. we all faint 
like paper dolls. of course i want
people to see me. i want people
to keep me in their pocket & say
"would you look what i got!" 
there's no such thing as 
a ticket booth. at least not for miles.
i take my shoes off to have jumping spider.
at the end of the sunset's stomach
there is another stage of only
trap doors. i stand over one
& wait impatiently. all i want to do
is plummet out of sight.
in the lush underground maybe 
there are legs enough for all of us.
someone takes a flash photo
so i cover my eyes. the flash 
perminantly paints my shadow
on a brick wall. i would like
to be brief. lemmings don't actually
jump to their death, you know?
they just... well yes i guess they
actually do that but it's not so bad
if you pretend they're just 
the strings of a great string instrument.
each plucked open for an apple's worth
of sound. i take a bow & 
wish i was some kind of heron
or at least an animal 
with less digital components. 
 

oyster mushrooms 

i wore a dress of oyster mushrooms
when i stood on your tongue 
like a bride. you said,
"they taste just like meat."
i roll my eyes. that is something
only a carnivore would say.
all the mushrooms danced & tried
to speak for the first time. 
the mushrooms for centuries 
have had a language that lives
only underneath their tongues.
aloud it sounded like water lapping
against a river rock. like beads
falling from a roof & onto the street.
i wished i know less of my own langauge.
how it had come from your mouth
like dog food & saw dust. i had
lived inside what words like 
"want" & "forever." 
i wasn't dressed for the occasion
as none of us are when we are 
told to be beautiful. your mouth
was damp & ravenous. i had promised
i would go as deep as i could. 
everything smelled like
crush dinosaur bones. 
a mouth can be anywhere you go
to confess. the mushrooms voices
echoing. i was my dress then 
the dress was me. i told you i loved you
in the language of mycorrhiza
but it was not nearly enough. 
i wanted to show you all the ways 
my body can speak.
talking with me in your mouth.
are we always to nest
inside our lovers imaginations?
here is where the mushrooms
give me wings.
you wanted a bowl of my hair
& to scour my body for spores.
i held a bouquet of mushrooms.
the mushrooms said in their voice
heavy with pebbles
"she wants to be a root."
he laughed & said,
"don't we all."

connect the dots

in the night everyone wore
their horse faces. i was trying
to figure out where my phone went
or who stole it. a box theif
trotted buy. a fox planted
dots all over the town.
when was the last time 
you followed numerical order?
i am no longer the first born.
now i am just an orion.
taking a quill pen & drawing 
bridges between every breath.
how did i use to know myself
so clearly. i would draw
my own outline each day starting
at shoulder & ending at ankle.
these days a point is here
& gone in a flash. i find
a speckle labled 23 but cannot find
all the others. the image 
could be anything. helicopters fly
with the sole purpose 
of finding out. i am not concerned.
we are either still alive tomorrow
or we are not. i make my own
on my bedroom wall. you are still
working. i should be sleeping.
instead though, i make a horse
from dots. i'm going to make
someone try to thread them.
there are days where everyone i meet
looks like this. a collage of 
unthreaded nexuses. i scoop a handful 
from them. pocket those points
to one day make a new self
i can where when the night
is this orange. i store them
beneath the moon where 
not even the crowns know to look. 

cut on the dotted line

i take the mighty scissors 
all the way across town
to where the instructions are perched
& preening. lately 
everything has been asking
to be severed. my friends grow
dotted lines criss-crossing
all over their skin. 
the lines used to make sense.
one for solace. another
for crafting a mask from wood.
now, everything has a splitting wish.
the instructions drop black feathers
all over town. i follow them
to the edge of the forest
where no lines will reach
dotted or otherwise. i always wanted
to become un-outlined. 
my colors smudging. 
leaving mess wherever i'd go.
instead i was given boundaries.
spiders webs have been skipping.
eyeliner lines too. give me
a sign we are not just
in between leaps. the chasms 
that ask to take the world whole.
the instructions laugh. do not know
what they are asking. i snip out
patches of dirt. a laundry mat
cracks open like an altar.
no one told me i was in the other half
but then all the clocks 
filled smiling melon. i'll take
the six hours i can get. 
my scissors chirp 
pretending to be a song bird.
bite down on soil & asphalt.
i look at my hands. dotted lines
in spirals on my palms.
try to wash them in the parting water
of the blue stream that 
someone else has already cut
a few miles up. "i just wanted to know
how i was supposed to survive,"
i tell the instructions who calls 
before vanishing again
between my breaths. 

crop tops & other secrets

i learned to eat 
on a stage of getting through.
cutting all the curtains in half.
slats of sunlight.
i try to take a nap but my heart
becomes a street lamp 
full of moths. all kinds of mothers
everyone has their shame 
stored in jars.
carrying them down to the river
to float them like shoes.
what i wouldn't give 
to be anyone else. spring 
is asking the important questions.
"when will i be 
green enough for you?"
carrying a spoon in my pocket
just in case. a landlord
thinking to himself, "i work so hard
for these mice." me, that's me.
i am mice. all the houses 
with for sale signs i join them
& put a for sale sign 
in my belly button. come & see
what the previous owner
has left for you. court yards
without any ivy. summer spitting
cherry seeds at the window.
no. that was a gun shot. no i think
it was just a firework. 
pot lucks without any luck.
i would try so hard to be
a woman. cut hourglasses 
into the walls & walked through them
just to find myself 
on the other side. i tried 
just as hard to be a men. 
punched holes in the drywall.
my knuckles are 
soldier helmets. i try to tell you
none of us are going to war
even though i know this isn't true.
i cut anything i can find
in half. scissoring panting
on the end table. 
you touch your hand 
to the small of my back.
all my hairs raise 
to attention.

tattooed moons

i went to learn perminance.
space stations dipped needles
in their dark. a teleprompter 
full of centos. the moons'
wild bright skin without 
any evidence of a language
i could learn.
old inhabitatns who only spoke
in memories of water. their obits 
ice-skating my collar bone.
the juggler on the corner
of the space station
where he drop his bells.
for my first tattoo i dreamed
the action could make me into 
an astronaut. blood to the surface.
breathing only galaxy dust. angels 
with feathers made of glass.
when i say "heavenly body"
the moons say, "we want to be
less holy." who doesn't want
to be less holy? i write my name
where no one will see it.
an ocean used to break here
or else this was a face
rolling in the skull gardens
of our grandfathers. no one was
proud of me but me. taking 
the fear of transition 
& snuffing it out. when i say "fear"
i mean delight. my joy is the kind
that burns stone. the moons gather
to exchange secrets. 
point to their mouths & say, 
"here is where
i want a name."

permission foods for gone boys

i'd like to i'd like to
from the table of candied
rain. putting on makeup
in the rear view mirror. this isn't
my car. i am not present 
but moreso pretending to be
a mouth. the spoons all have
ablackhole where the swallow should be.
i ask god if i'm allowed
to enjoy a buttery thumb
& he says i have not worked hard 
enough to earn that kind
of release. all the boys 
climb into the oven & come out
as fists. golden brown. have 
a fork twisting a wad of hair.
master sets out a bowl of water.
sitting in the hole of a donut
waiting for the sound 
of a whistle. i try to be
indulgent & by that i mean
i try to eat cherry tomatoes 
in halves. hot springs or hale storms.
never the less, i can't be trusted
with hunger & a doorway. i lock
my face in a lead box. 
become bullet proof for the sake
of cherry pits. open wide 
while you free my tongue.
pairing knife. a colony of 
electric taste. i press my palms
to my eyes. open wide as 
the dark. hear the sound of sweetness.
the baker's secret heart.
monkey bread. every one 
is taking pieces. i sacrifice 
a blue morning. but it is still
not quite enough. 

sleet keeping

i ask the sky 
for the perminance
it cannot give. step out
into cobalt with 
an open bucket. collect for me
every fingernail & follicle.
if i am contained i am
not diminishing. i am still
in a world where i could
love you like i used to 
& we can still be a necklace
of ice. i want to be worn.
to be kept in a velvet box.
for you to call me "lover"
& bring me any trinket 
you can find. is it too much to ask
to be the cloud's muse.
rain coming now like beetles.
i heard you humming
as you dismantled your hands
one finger at a time.
what parts of you 
will i get to keep? i would like
to give you a snow ball
from a year ago. inside 
is a pearl born
in dust & stir. i empty 
every accumulation. 
no one tells the truth 
when they just want 
to feel holy. there are
buckets of beads that resemble
our eyes. i'm threading them 
on the telephone polls.
still the color of slate
heaven is full 
of unemptinesses. 

sled dogs in march

i wanted to be rushed through spring.
put my skull on a sled 
through the last vibrant snows.
i am joined in a field 
of dogs. each of them know
only one command, "stay."
so i say it over & over & over.
stay stay stay stay stay.
this is how i make a promise 
to continue to pick blades of grass.
the river births new batches
of gnats to toil in their circuses.
a neighbor lays out 
fake grass over a patch of dirt
as he smokes a cigar. we all 
are making sense of our shoulders.
i could tell you they pulled me
till the end of the year
but it would be a lie. we stopped
& laid looking up 
at a watermelon moon. i admitted
to knowing nothing about rest.
the dogs licked my face.
gave over a spare tooth to me
incase i wanted to make
a new face. i told them 
in the next few years i would love
to be a dog. i want to become
an instruction. stay stay stay.
waiting on the edge of a gust of wind
for a hand to unfurl.
instead for now 
my body runs like spilled leaves.
i am gathering 
& gathering as much of myself
as i can to walk 
on all fours into the sun's
bowl of oranges. here is 
the flowers' arrival. snow blinks
into rain. the dogs keep going.
the sled is a television by the end
of the season. the dogs 
are tossed knots of hurry--wanting.
i call "stay" 
& nothing stays. 

pot hole

i took all my boiling inward.
ushering the metal stomach
towards a red electronic point.
used my apples as grenades until
all the roads i made 
where laid with linens & veils.
to become the thrift store girl 
with a shopping cart full
of canteens. i am surviving
destinations like pearls shucked
from the faces of bob cats.
this highway used to be 
a forest of hungry ankles.
i am always stopping in a target.
taking all my wooden spoons out
to show i have no weapons
but my own nail beds. filling in
a hole requires something more
than what you started with.
i collected origins until
they all failed me. stuffed the fissure
with mud & mythology. i would drive
through arches to make you 
my bouquet of steering wheels.
a wind blows me from my oldest perch.
i see shadow children in the corner
of my vision. they nibble on toast
like rats. i tell them they can stay
just not get any closer.
stop signs bloom where we once
tried to plant basil. a hotel 
has eleven heart beats. 
under a neon sign i throw salt
over my shoulder. sleep in 
the hole in the ground
watching wheels pass over.