holy fork

in the night time dark, where one day eats 
off the plate of the next, we heard the forks 
singing by the corn fields. to us, hunger 
was a sibling who slept at the bottom of the closet.
we told him, "there is no food" while we chewed
sugary pink gum we bought with scoured for quarters.
went out together, as brothers do, with that secret.
flashlights severing shadows. we found the nest of forks.
all of them humming & praising the moon. i dared you 
to take one & you dared me. the shivering intrument. 
tuning our bodies to this passage. clouds moved as quilts. 
until morning, we used the forks to eat cool fresh dirt. 

comet 

i take care of each new fire like a limb.
kneeling, i tell my catastrophe it has my eyes. 
the family is burning down the house one tv at a time. 
with my telescope, i walk out into the middle of a hurricane city.
the wind sings dead people songs & the rain 
comes down like wedding rings. a disaster is also a great love. 
when i lost my doorways, every night i made a coffin 
for my memories to lay down in. you can grieve so much
it becomes a being. putting my grief in a stroller, 
i deliver it down to the crater at the edge of time 
where cats turn back into birds. i say "this is when 
you destroyed my world." the comet laughs like a child. 

baseball field heaven

with our fingers, we trace circles around each other 
in the orange-red dirt. to be dead is to be
a baseball player. teeth full of grit.
we take turns outfield-standing; making sun dials
of our bodies. one of us says, "it is noon"
& he says it every hour. the stadium is 
a far away story. sometimes we stare out 
& say, "i think i see it." a glint of sliver
suggesting a bleacher. none of us remember hot to play 
but i remember how it felt to put my fingers
through the chain link fence. we go out to pitch at the sky. 
i say, "home run" as the ball is eaten by blaring light.

clothes pin gossip

one clothes pin says to another,
"i remember when he was a woman."
a wire spills from the house like a vein.
you hang up night gowns & communion dresses.
meanwhile, in laundry room, the children crouch 
& look for credit cards. they want to buy
a shiny new life. everything is damp. rain comes 
with shards of glass. the new chemical makes the birds 
into telephones. incoming calls from a dead lover.
he used to rub your back. you saw mushroom clouds in his irises. 
"the wind will take anything" says the other clothes pin.
you undress, then try to take off your skeleton too.

bowling pin

you break down the door with a letter opener
but i hide the secret beneath the fall-down stairs
& won't be giving it to you. intruder alert.
cellar door cellar door. she says, "let's get coffee."
they talk about how all games are all either 
about wanting touch or about knocking the whole city over.
she wants to be touched. he wants to knock the whole city over.
godzilla sits in the bay weeping. we go to console him 
with a packet of fruit snacks & a bowling ball. 
he thanks us. we become pins standing side by side.
isn't that just like me? to offer myself as a video game.
i don't give up the secret at least. my bruises are ripe planets.

animal chalkboard 

i close my eyes & peel an orange. 
the orange is not an orange but a fist. 
uncurl the fingers wrapped around a pen drive 
that's full of confessions. 
one of them is i used to write "i love you" 
on the chalkboard & pretend that by erasing it, 
i was sending it to someone else. i want to celebrate myself 
the way birds do unquestioningly. 
just yesterday, i saw a blue jay swoop down, 
a flower in his beak. he said, "summertime summertime" 
like a skipping record. the orange wasn't sweet. 
was full of seeds. the "i love you" comes as an animal rain. 

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.