shot gun wedding

i do not have enough canned food.
we are, despite all our efforts,
probably not going to make it very far
into the apocalypse. my grief has 
a suitcase full of chocolate coins.
my grief has a little bug cage where
all the caterpillars never change. 
this week the weather channel boasted 
that we were in "peak color" for the season.
trees are showing their teeth. getting red
in the morning guts. you suggest in passing
that maybe we should get married.
when i first met you i was sick 
with romance. i planned so many weddings.
in the forest. on a boat. made of deer.
flowers falling from a tear in a cloud.
now, i feel like if we don't do it
we won't have the chance. i am opposed
to all rituals that the state peers in on.
i believe then it might no longer
be a ritual. still, i am hungry for the life
which i do not have. the hole in our fence
is where the leopard slugs come with
their flutes. a wellness influence 
is selling detox kits again. she's in the windows
& then laughing in the chimney. 
you bought me a ring when we first met.
it has a break right at my finger's neck.
i consider how a promise is not 
an isolated phenomenon. instead, it happens
in the context of the burning world. 
i have become less & less sure that we 
make choices. or, at least, that people
like us make choices. i guess though if 
i am going to be backed into a corner i am glad 
to be backed into a corner with another
violet creature. i dream new rings for us.
ones made of headlights & wind. 
i want wild vows. no cheesy, "i do"
instead the old language of mountains.
a stillness that fills each other's sky. 

sample cup

i no longer want
to eat my life from 
a sample cup. i want a bowl
we could sleep in. one that's been
in the family for generations.
chipped ceramic lip. 
i want it full of birds & edible flowers.
i crave a plate to fit my house.
a fullness that doesn't leave when
the lights go out. we drive to costco 
to take a fluorescent bath
& to smell the roasted chicken. 
i don't even eat meat but i marvel
ovens full of bird choirs. all the bodies
holding sample cups. the workers
portioning out raviolis 
& beef tallow chips. whatever new 
morsel they want to feed us.
we take as many as we can.
a seagull meal. candied pecans 
in our teeth. the cups, piling to make
a little brief castle. a place where
everything arrives as just a bite.
i never leave full. i try to think of
the last time i was full. it was a christmas 
so many years ago. night came 
with licorice. all the lights 
in the world were bone & bright.
we ate from paper plates. i think it was 
a roasted chicken. my fingers 
in the sinew & grease. a canned pear.
all three aunts still alive. the tart
crabapples from the tree at the end
of the driveway. i fell asleep 
on the drive home. i steal an empty 
sample cup before we leave costco.
i hold it up just to see. even from
this far away the moon will not fit.
i decide to keep the cup & use it to find out
when we all have enough. i do not want
my beloveds to have to hang on
to just a taste. 

echo aching 

my voice doesn't come back to me.
not even when i find a valley or a gorge.
instead, i am met with a car horn
or sometimes a window-eyed elevator.
i don't know why i so badly want
my voice to return. after all, to be a creature
is to be an artist & to be an artist means
to let go. to feel all the butter leave you
& glisten in the mouths of strangers.
still, i have a dream where i speak a poem
into a woven basket & the poem
crawls hope. sings itself to me. no longer
becomes my poem but the world's.
finally a lullaby. a place to rest inside of.
i am not so big-headed that i think 
my echoes are best. i would take
the return voice of a crow or a dog 
or a lover. i find our world is full of 
less & less returns. migrations turned
into escapes. still i am reminded that
after decades the salmon still knew
how to come back when the damn 
was broken. the water still wanted 
to lick our faces. maybe the echoes i make
are on a longer journey. will return one day
when i am part of the soil & the trees
i feed develop a faint affinity for spoons
& early mornings. then, the poem will
come back. tangle itself in the hair 
of a neighbor who might pick
her free teeth with the words. 

brittle

i don't know anymore if i want to be stronger.
i have swallowed so many rocks. tasted their
edges. fingers from a low cloud saying,
"just one more & then everyone is golden."
the one more becomes a city. becomes a mountain
i have laid for myself to climb when 
i need to reach my thoughts. desire is murky.
like looking through a beer bottle at the sun. 
what is a star & what is a street lamp? instead
of all of that, i would like to be brittle. not soft.
i do not want to fall off the bone or mash
in someone's teeth. i want to fracture imperfectly.
the texture of dry rice noodles & my grandmother's
fingernails from years of clawing days open.
i want my body to be a measure of the too-much.
a place for everyone to stop & share our breaking.
the mountain turned into a pile of glass 
for the light to play in. i open my mouth. give 
the birds a place to weep. each break becoming
a giving. how the arms of trees fall to give
the mushrooms their lungs. how the teeth 
of old dogs drop to become rosaries. 
let me then be a breaking place. the crusts 
of warm bread. mermaid's purses. a spoon's shiny hip
to fracture the face of the thinnest sugar.

throat garden

i heard about you in the throat garden.
everyone was talking about the time
you cut off your hands & they turned 
into gila monsters. i bought feeder fish
from the pet store for my turtle who would
become part of the garden when
she ran away during a lightning storm.
the whole sky was a bruise & she sung
about the water that kept her & the water
that made her. i hope someday to become
part of the garden too. for better or for worse
i love to talk. i could complain all day.
people will visit my throat when they want
to really bitch about something &
i'll say "yeah, yeah, yeah" to egg them on.
you need someone to cosign your fury sometimes.
in the garden no one is whole which is
a relief after a life of having to pretend.
instead, we talk in fragments. build
a stained glass language where every word 
means what it needs to. everyone said 
we would make great lovers. i found your mouth
& threw pennies in, making wishes. 
you love the taste of metal &/or blood. 
sometimes we take turns being
the throat. you be the tongue & i'll be
a song. the throats can be long & sometimes
surprisingly shallow. i once stuck my foot in
to test the waters. sounds of holy bells
& fingerless moons. i find the shallow water
always warmer. more suited to floating
on my back & nibbling at the clouds.
let's just stay here. i can bring you all 
the pockets you want. we can talk until
there are no more words left, all of them used
& sitting like wrappers at our feet. 
then i can be a throat too. a place to visit.
for a stranger to nestle inside of after
a long day of trying to be legible 
in a toothless place. 

yellow jacket

when i met you, the bees came.
first just a few in the laundry room.
they crawled all over the back window
talking to the sun. i tried to let them out
but more always arrived. 
in the dark we became eels. 
made knots to hang the clouds from.
the house shrank to the size of 
a mouth to crawl inside. the bees talked
all night, especially on the nights when
you didn't stay. those nights all the bees
could say was, "more more more."
we wanted too much from each other.
i cut off fingers. the tip of my tongue.
an ear lobe. gathered them in a little glass bowl.
put on a collar made of street lights.
the bees multiplied. built a queen out
of stars & she laughed until the whole house 
thrummed. i would find their carapaces 
on the floor in commas. their hungers,
fruitless. siblings coming to repeat the same
impossible reaching. one time when 
you stayed, there were so many yellow jackets 
that one flew into our desire. 
the bed like the trunk of a getaway. 
i wanted to so much for us. one night i 
climbed into the hive. i tried to leave
with handfuls of echos. tried to build
a queen in the backseat of my car. she always
left before the sun could yolk run 
down the stairs. when you went home, the bees said,
"we are dying." i swept their bodies from
the tile floor. some angry brethren still 
furious & spinning. sometimes i think 
we were just two of them. yellow jackets 
with mouths of nectar. a hive in the walls
of the old house, calling us to eat. 

sat test 

the test will detonate 
when you are a first-born eel. 
the test will call you "mother"
if you find the question used to determine
whether or not you grew up
in a place with big money. i did not
grow up in a place with big money
& so the question bit my finger &
the proctor put her finger to her lips
& uttered a "shush." 
i cannot believe there are still sitting children
with pencils in their teeth. a screen opens
to reveal a trophy. someone was 
the smartest in the eyes of the hungry state.
someone was worthy in the sense that
their blood tastes like oranges & is not
prone to rebellion. i remember 
the bathroom after the exam. all the children
from other schools. their soft fingers
& the pink soap they used to scrub
their hands. my score was mediocre
which at the time devastated me but now 
i feel proud. do not let them
swallow your thoughts. do not let them
measure you. to be measured is to be
destroyed. i am as tall as the great oak tree
that once stood above my elementary school
but is now just a stump where
older kids go to sit & look up at the sun. 
i am as small as the toads whose throats
fill with trumps in the late season when
they are debating when they should
turn back into stones for the winter.
a timer went off. a door opened. 
in the parking lot i wiped my palms 
on my thighs. i do not remember who 
drove me or why. the day, a can of black beans.
lid pried open. mouths gathering. 
some people will tell you "future" & mean
"capture" & some will say it like a root.
hold on to the root. dig them up
only when the season is right. feast.
the legs in the dark. the timer going off
in a cloud. decide what parts you are willing
to feed the question machine & which 
are only tell to the crows & the dead deer
& the man without a face who meets you
beneath the oak tree that is no longer there. 

salmon mouth

sometimes i open my mouth
& the salmon are home. they have swam
up my blood to the surface. their scales
like hand mirrors in the dark. 
i am fishing. i am fishing out my window
like i used to do as a child when 
the year put on her blanket & curled up
at the foot of the bear. i would snag
all kinds of dreams. a hook through 
my grandfather's lip. his braided beard
like a trestle into a sweat sweet jungle. 
a hook through my grandmother's ear
as it rang like a bell struck in an empty church.
i am hungry in a way the stars can 
no longer fix. i am hungry for sleep & for 
legless birds. no more landings 
let us go until the world is water. until there
are no more dams to block our teeth.
bite down on the holy ground. mouth of sand.
mouth of water. mouth of salmon. 
the roots clapping their hands beneath
soil. singing their bells. the hook 
finally catching my father when his hair
was still long. when the sound of cicadas 
opened us like canned meat. his jeep
in the parking lot beneath the willow tree.
the salmon finding us there. filling the floor
of the car. a breeze that turned us both
into ghosts. i reel in a bare hook. put it through
my own tongue & hand the rod to the sun. 
make me a cloud. i want to rain. 

ripe window

windows start falling from the big fist tree.
i can't work quick enough to gather them all. 
i have been considering giving my phone
to a passing fox & escaping from the world. 
what would i do to keep my little brain 
from buzzing? i guess i could start 
receiving prophecies again. my windows have windows.
my windows taste bitter like dandelion root
& nasal spray. i want a really ripe window.
i want one soft to the touch like the flesh
of an eager persimmon. a portal to push through.
once i spent the night in a house with windows
for walls. i thought the whole world
had pulled up a chair to watch me. i laid
on the floor & looked up at the ceiling. 
waited for my skin too to turn into a place
people gather to see another side. if i had
the ripe window i would pull up a chair.
drink some spiced tea without sugar. offer
the window a sip. maybe outside there would be
deer protesting or a magpie with a message
about where to be saved. the best part of 
my lush window would be the guests.
crows & salmon & even the wondering 
ceiling creatures. all of them here in the 
living room with a plan about how we are all
going to remember our bodies as part
of the soil. in one apartment i had a window
that opened to the sky. i always dreamed of
a ladder to reach it. the window did not open.
just a skylight. i wanted to touch the glass though
in the middle of the day. feel if it was warm. 
feel the sugar. learn if it was sweet. 

the deer walk

when i am alone the deer always walk
on two legs. you drive home & take
three wrong turns. we snake through
weird fresh neighborhoods that look
like movie sets. most of the homes are unsold.
there used to be trees here & weeds
& the occasional wildflower with a heart
of a hummingbird. i don't usually feel 
like anyone can hear me when i talk
except for the deer. i admit that sometimes
i cry alone before bed. it is pathetic.
mostly in the bathroom. on a good night
a deer will walk up to the tiny window
& press her nose to the glass. i will show her
my legs & ask her if she could give me hooves.
i want to run with them through 
all the tongues of men. eat their gardens.
ring their doorbells. enter a new development 
& stand on the ceiling. the guests in the morning
baffled by the wayward hoof prints. 
the worst part is i cannot blame you.
i know i am the kind of lover who runs away.
who avoids making promises. we hang 
a left. the roads thin & you go slow. we are 
in deer country. i am embarrassed & i hope
that none of them are standing, ready to greet me.
is it wrong to want to keep a secret? myself & the deer
with our feet planted in the autumn earth. 
their eyes shine like dimes in the dark. tossed coins
turning into stars. the deer always keep
our secret. i walk out barefoot to bring them
grapes from the fridge.