in a dream, i have a daughter & she calls me "mother"

so i bury her underneath the pine tree
alongside goldfish bones & cicada skeletons.
winter is full of holes & i spill out all of them.
she was soft like risen dough. un-baptized.
swaddled in newsprint like a fish. 
lately, i have been thinking about children.
on a bookshelf, i build a tiny replica 
of my bedroom in my parent's house.
bunk beds grow wild in the park 
where i walk & witness children
summoning demons beneath the jungle gym.
i used to do the same. hair wracked with 
wood chips. she was so hungry.
drank deeply from a bottle 
as i sat holding her. telling her
we come from a long line of haunted boys.
asking my body what it could know
about fatherhood. she does not know
how to cry & i do not teach her.
says it again later from beneath
the soil. calling me "mother."
but that is not me so i back away
from the wreckage. every time she crawls free.
sits like a centerpiece 
on the kitchen table. wriggling
or wrything. tell me the difference
between motherhood & grave-tending.
my gender grows as a birch tree
& then burns like a bush. nothing speaks.
only fire. we warm ourselves by it.
i feed her gold coins. later, 
we will take a road trip to a crater.
eat the cores of apples. wash my hair
in thunderstorm breath, trying 
to lose my "mother."

t-rex graveyard 

under the cvs parking lot
is a prehistoric dream.
as a girl, i walked there barefoot
in patterns around green & brown glass.
felt their foot prints widening beneath.
we have no evidence t-rex buried their dead
but i know they did. gathered 
in circles. trees burning with grief.
how can our words animate a world
before their own existence? even t-rex
had five different ways of saying "kinship."
t-rex language too was knit 
without past or present. the gathered
& the soon to gather. i love most 
the places where only poetry can enter.
here is ancient mourning. here is 
the body of a creature becoming only bone.
i don't know if i want to be a t-rex
but i do know when i sense them 
in the parking lot i can't help but believe
i've made some mistake. here i am 
with plastic bags. bottles of elsewhere.
feet no longer bare. my body nothing but
a femur. ghost rain washing their bodies.
stories of the oldest feathers. 
then, i think, will an animal someday 
sense me & my bones. crave a living room
& mirages of caskets. think to themself
"i could have been a human, but instead
i am this." t-rex had four chambered hearts
the size of pigs. i have a handful of dirt.
t-rex are gathering & gathered & soon
to arrive. dusk falls early because its winter.
i return home. see their shadows
conjured by street lights.

axe throwing

my god was a fire puppet.
they said we were lucky to get out alive.
gripping your laughs by the handle.
ending are never as precise 
as i want them. i collect buttons
in a sweater pocket in case 
i need to close a hole in the atmosphere.
we paint the target on your back.
ring after ring. you become celestial 
in our shared dream of exaction.
here is where i stop loving you
& we become ex-comets. you post
on facebook a meme that jokes
about dying. we are the family
of nero's violins. in the air an axe 
whirls. propellor & orbit-maker.
the blade that comes around again
& a again. sharpness of planets.
each thins to the body of
a pairing knife. cleaves the space-dark
like a black nectarine. i am so hungry 
for a bullseye. perfection. you turn
on your heel & become an orchard.
i collapse as a heap of firewood.
send smoke in the shape of stringrays.
ocean buttons her waves. 
a field of targets. you want me
to call you to say goodnight.
i can't. the phone is a dragon tongue bean
or else the handle of an axe. 

bowling ball hole

i learned how to enter
from the brass revolving door.
the world grabbed me by the skull.
everything was round but especially
my failures. i floss my teeth with
electric wire. learn to be unbothered
by wind turbines. every movement 
is an opportunity for profit & that includes
the growth of trees. we'll make use of it soon.
for now i see the sidewalk specimens 
& think "what a waste of yearning."  
i was a cow in a previous life & every color 
laughed green. we go bowling together
& outside the sky fills with ash.
the world's end is mundane at this point.
someone takes a picture to use 
as their phone background. we want to remember
exactly what it felt like to play 
when there are no more weights left
to throw. we're being held by 
three little holes. i drill grips 
in the hallway. standing still. ring 
around my neck. i have seen where pins bloom
in ragged fields on dead men. smooth 
even in their dirt. nothing will stop
the coming clutter. something to do
with family. fingers longer than 
my mother's & shorter than my fathers.
i lay down in the gutter of my old futures.
let the machine guess who or what is next.
our shoes are clean enough
to eat off of. a skull is spat 
from the tunnel. we are playing 
in the realest world now. 

sleep lessons

i consult stones for their knowledge
only to find they are not resting at all.
exerting themselves to exhaustion.
"i won't keep you," i tell them.
inside my skull are balled up socks 
& an abandonded water park 
from outside of the town where i grew up. 
i keep most of my wreckage private.
tend a burn pile. leaves escaping 
in a gust of wind. ash-kissed flags.
we search the ceiling like a map
when it comes to this. gathering 
the room up. there is a pocket
for anything. to want something 
means you do not truly have it.
sleep turns into a golden calf
& runs the city ragged. 
we keep the curtains closed for fear
the creature will find us & demand 
payment. he does not know 
how to rest either. i ask my partner 
if she knows what the tallest building 
in the city is & she says it is 
the memory of a giant birch tree.
i fill a bowl with dirt.
put my ear the soil, 
trying to hear their music.
my body thrums. becomes a roost 
for bats. thousands of them 
in each of my shadows. the sun
tenses like a squinted eye.
light spills honey-like & loud 
across the morning sidewalk. 

appointment reminder

i'm scheduling the hairs on my arms
to grow. weeds in my father's yard
ask the important questions like
"when are we going to burn the system
to the ground?" i tell the grass
this week i have to let the doctor
tell me not to worry about fingernails 
& ginko trees. in a parallel world
i am revolutionary. my blood
is made of pewter & pledges. i rush out
into the street & free all the lamp posts.
here, in my real life,
i have less & less allegiances. right now  
all i trust is the color grey
& the space between your breasts.
i will inevitably forget
but that is why metal birds exist.
i open my phone which is slowly
becoming a diety. my device plans out 
the next hundred years without me.
date & time can get me through 
most mornings. a calendar nailed
to a tree on walnut street. 
the reminder says, "we require 
your body." i think "good take it!"
when the day is over there will be
more tin foil hats to knit
with future children. there will be
a bed for us to make puppets in.
i will still need to find a place
to store the jars of noise stolen
from that one night we shouted
into the bare winter forest.
don't worry. i confirm the future
or is that just a knot in a balloon?
have you seen these new screens?
a mirror without the mirror
opens blossom-like. tomorrow
is a distance i measure in leaves. 

instant shipping

our future desire will be 
housed on the head of a pine needle.
screen door blowing open.
a tornado in every heart beat.
kissing a man on a conveyor belt.
here is how fast we will learn
to put out the fire with salt.
a television for asking
& a television for receiving.
windows blinking away a new need.
once i ordered three pounds of bananas 
on a grocery app. a man knocked
at my door carrying the bananas 
like infants. lost-look in his eyes 
he asked, "are these all yours?"
this is how i feel about both
my purchases & my old lovers.
walking the length 
of a dead airport landing strip.
birds have advertising jingles
stuck in their heads. a lawn mower 
is here to cut the day moon in half.
you have to pay to see it full.
there's an app for that & another
to ask the stars what your body means.
mine tells me "introduce yourself,
you're fearless today." i am no such thing.
i am more hungry than i have ever been.
my socks are automatic. soon 
even my fingers will have staircases.
do i just want the say piece i say it do
or do i want ever single knot.
i fill the shopping cart again.
hover my thumb over the "proceed" button
for hours & then days until the items
are dust & i am still wanting them.

multiverse

we wash our hands in the rain.
eat pudding on the porch 
& do not fall in love. i watch you
turn into a lightning bolt.
dirt breathes. rocks kneel.
you take care of me using
knitting needles. i am as small
as a passing elsewhere. days 
fit into our back pockets.
i cut my nails. i cut my hair.
you miss me deeply & so you travel
from one side of the planet 
to the other. time is made
of wax & then fire. the solitary candle.
my hand on your back. oh you used to
want to take me apar just how i needed.
a curtain catches & engulfs the whole universe.
don't worry there are others 
in which we struggle just the same.
here inside my own we sit 
in a dinner booth & talk like brothers.
how am i supposed to wear my body
in exactly the way you like?
i remember another bead. i counted on
your elbows. you wrote a scripture 
across my hipbones. kneels to read aloud.
god was always a pile of feathers.
pushing around to find an animal
at the center just to encounter the needle.
throwing an old pair of shoes
over an electric wire. in the other world
we float them like viking funerals.
you promise me "next time, next time."
this is the other you & not the one
whose hair is eaten by the wind.
november once smoldered & reddened.
now, a simple leg muscle.
i have no more room in my desires
to fit another bone. you rest your head
against my chest. i become
a chocolate mousse. soft on your tongue.
gone. clouds darn mourning clothes.
it rains. our shoes float past.

the year i didn't show up in pictures 

not quite a vampire but similarly
echoing. the sound of strawberries
in every room i entered. my heart 
was a thimble of water. twigs came 
to inhabit my bones. i snapped under
each encounter. a mouth. an ankle.
a girl can come to crave decision.
seek it out in the eight-ball eyes 
of older men. his stomach 
full of sand. a girl can become a boy
in the shadows of small town buildings.
the corn falling down before 
a firing squad. i stood & posed
several times. there family pictures 
without me there at all. i am the frame
or maybe the grey background 
where snow leopards drink their own skin.
a flower would knock at my eyelid
& ask, "are you still a body?"
i would roll over. unsure how to answer.
between my legs a poleroid camera emerged.
snapped photographs out my window
which spilled on the floor. 
shamefully, i collected them 
like leaves. invented a coffin 
for them to sleep in. refused
to give them a chronology. that's exactly
what they wanted. when it was over
i missed the freedom of being noticed.
how time used to dance with me
like a yard's worth of wind. 
instead now, a skeleton. an x-ray.
my cobblestone teeth. the hooves 
of a minotaur in my jaw. a half smile.
stoops of my eyes. i used to be
a portal elk came to peer through. 
now an evacuation barrier in the midst 
of a fire tornado. hair singed.
ocean wary of my motives. 

tissue boxes in the underworld

inside my head is a waterwheel.
i hold a vase of flowers 
& walk around the block with it
pretending i'm delivering them
to a new goddess. when i feel manic
i try to look for hummingbirds.
it is winter & the hummingbirds
have all become piles of leaves.
i should spend less time 
feeling sorry for myself but 
then i open the silverware drawer
& there are all those spoons
i have to father. i never used to
buy tissues. i just waited 
to find myself in hell. heat so great
the tears would evaporate 
as they hit the air. no crying 
in self-destruction. my blood
was a cloud around us. red mist.
mars fell from the sky.
red bouncy ball. my partner buys tissues
& i'll often pluck one just
to have something to hold
& set fire to. a distress signal
sends itself from my chest:
a little mechanical bird.
i catch him & twist his head off.
feel guilty about it for weeks but
no one can know just how close to collapse
i am living. i'm one shoe away 
from running barefoot
in december. one tissue box away 
from pushing all the spoons
out the window & onto the sidewalk.
i no longer want to live 
in a box in a box in a box. 
there should be more 
spherical homes. i hollowed out
a pear to sleep in for tonight.
sticky & short-lived. this is how
i exist. sweet rotting walls.
a tissue box far away
rings like a telephone.