shark legs

i backstroke through a field of water
where above the sun is a bleeding plate.
we fled like only sea creatures can
from the threat of being conceptualized
& turned into nightmare machines.
scooped pockets dark from the deep 
& ran our hands up each others thighs.
some sharks wear skirts 
when they're on their way 
to the tooth factory. others settle for
bare smooth flesh. becoming predator 
is a process of exchanges. 
here is my face for the smell 
of blood. here are my eyes where once 
doll trees grew & spit fingers.
my father used to tell a story 
of a shark leaving the ocean
to travel up a river & into 
a tiny creek by his home. 
he was just a boy staring into clear water 
at a shark. fin jutting from surface.
the shark was probably just
hoping for a quick evolution.
aren't we all? i look at my genetics 
& ask, "how can i hollow out my bones
to fly?" the sharks keep their legs hidden
in case they need to break ground.
a cave full of blue & grey legs.
child sharks go there & gaze fearfully
at their potential. i do not have
a closet of fins but i do 
search all lakes for sharks
before dipping a leg inside.
some animals are adaptable
& i am not one of them. it took hundreds
of thousands of years & still
i fear unknowns. wake up to the sound
of sharks running--practicing 
for a soon-to-be end times.
i don't tell anyone i witness this.
like all terrors, to acknowledge it
would only give it more power.
they return to the lake by my house.
geese dissapear one by one.
my legs are searching 
for a more promising animal.
they leer at birds & salamanders.
maybe one night i'll go out
& dash with the sharks.
pretend i have a cellar of teeth.
my father peer down into the water.
the shark looks into his eyes 
& stumbles away. 
 

hope chest

i swallowed dresses like water.
gulps of fabric. where do you become
a wife? i spread in the dark,
eagle-faced & hungry for tulle.
i had a man once hand me 
a pair of plyers & ask me
to remove each of my teeth 
one by one as a promise to him.
i did so. each tooth turned to dust
as they hit the air. "giving"
must be willing & eager. 
he divided my soul between 
a set of fresh pots & pans.
now, i make promises on other people's knees.
a prayer isn't always something done 
with only the mouth. i saved money 
for my wedding in a paper bag 
alongside stolen stars & rubber bands. 
you have to take what you can get.
i hammer together a basin. here is where
we will pretend to be ready.
where i will carve a new heart
from the bark of a rotted out tree.
a necklace from someone's grandmother.
three gold coins. i try to pay angels 
to teach me deception. men have
put their thumbs over my eyes
& told me it was night. i am holding 
a chest in the dark, looking for a place
to set it down. foot of the bed
where everyone waits. an infection
of lace on my back. girls braiding
my hair as i wake. roses bushes
are never as beautiful as they should be.
white roses wilting in a vase
inside the chest. i place a tape recorder
& a taser. the dowry is a spoonful 
of honey. he will wake up,
crawl on his hands & knees, 
& open the chest every day. find me there
sewing breath into rope. 
tell me i am the beautiful stone
in the whole world. i will weep.
maybe i should learn how to 
become a bird. preferably an eagle
or a hawk. never a crane. 
perch high up. give him feathers
to keep him company. 
sit on top of the chest
& focus on turning my eyes 
into moons.

homemade barometer 

give me the real axe.
salt & word-warm air. i want 
a leg without spiders inside 
or a back that doesn't barter 
for breath. i look inside 
the terrarium & ask 
"who are you who i have given
all my water?" the water chuckles.
this is a game i play with myself.
see how much pressure can fill
a lung until destruction.
i was surprised when this winter
seed pods up the street burst,
spreading their desires 
all over the sidewalk. i don't remember
how to crave, will someone come teach me.
inside my head is a machine 
that measures how much sadness 
i can ensure. i build new corredors 
each day. i eat with my fingers.
press a hole in the wall
where i'll be able to talk to 
the solitary self. "you are safe there,
don't come out." removing your hair 
from the drain i consider joining it.
becoming long & dead. the air pressure
has to find a way out somehow.
spitting cherry pits 
at the sun & hoping to make 
an escape. there is an exit side
on the back wall of my closet.
i press my back against it until
the world tilts & i'm laying down.
take me to target & buy me 
a new life. it doesn't have to be 
beautiful. i just want a lockable face.
spare teeth under the bed. 
lover with eight arms
& a mind-reading device
so he can know when i'm trying
to extinguish a good day.
taste-testing the atmosphere
i have to say it's no where near done. 
more sugar. more airplane scars.
i'm standing up again
& walking into the coat room
of someone else's heart. 
stripping down to only my socks.
i talk to you through the door.
"i just need a moment," i say.

adverse childhood experiences 

i am learning about the ways 
a piece of red yarn can pass through 
the needle's head unharmed. disbelief.
my heart takes a biplane
to a treed peach, ripe as origami. 
do you mean to tell me 
all children didn't run 
to hide in piles of straw?
curl to the size of a pistachio
at the thought of their names?
i used to weed the church garden
with angels tangled in my hair.
night feel like a dropped book.
scraped my knees on the promises
of my father's teeth. 
eating candy wrappers for their sweetness.
rain leaking in from a hole
in the ceiling. the world seemed suddnely 
like rotting fruit. catching flies
& befriending them. brevity.
suitcases full of shoes. the bus station
where bodies arrived as dolls.
i played alone to the sounds
of ghosts asking for turns
with my stuffed animals. two girls 
running up & down the hall. 
fear of drowning in the bath. 
monsterous rocking chair.
dull steak knives. i went days 
without anything but angel chatter.
choruses of dandelions. i joined them.
became the lovelist weed.
ragged hair. dirt under my nails.
my mother with a pitcher of iced tea.
brother, chicken breast born,
needed so much snow. i'd go
to the top of the mountain to scoop it.
returning resentful. why had no one
asked me how i wanted to live?
walking my goldfish down 
to the creek. telling him 
he would be better off up stream.
filing cabinet gills. 
rustling trees. 
angels perching there too.

tea cup ride

i was the laughing texture family.
my father wore the greyest suites 
even on vacation. there was a camera
with fish-net legs that followed me
into the amusement park bathroom 
& told me it would all soon be over.
i covered my face. 
a part of me relished 
the ride's disorientation,
as if stirring me could unravel 
the future of knotted hair 
& brackish tongues. i had white socks.
the sun was made of sandpaper.
we all stared down at a hammer
in the middle of the walkway & said
"oh no, that's not mine." could we all fit
inside the tea cup? every time i brew 
early grey, i pretend my father 
is inside the tea bag. whirling,
i give in to blur. crave a smeared brother.
ruined horizons. wish my body had 
less outlines & more colors.
neon tangled heart. lungs made 
of helium balloons. taking our shoes off
when we get home, my toes scurry away 
& slip between floorboards.
what do you mean "we are almost there?"
a street sign bends in the wind.
i watch a sky scraper faint. 
we all have the one chipped tooth
from where we let the children enter.
let's go again, i know what to expect now.
nighttime falls & we are still here.
my father is impatiently waiting
for a star to slip & fall & smash open.
i twiddle my thumbs like i saw someone do
on tv. we are also on tv. a little girl 
watches us & asks if she can go 
to the amusement park next year.
i try to take a sip from the tea cup
& burn my tongue. inside the tea bag
are a pile of penny loafers. 
my father's old shoes. 
i add honey & blow steam 
from the surface.

worm weaving on a damp april morning

i wore bare feet like row boats.
tried to step so as to not harm
the alphabet. instead i killed "z"
& left a lot of language hanging.
we were still talking & shouldn't have been.
i was finding parking lots 
to kill plastic bags with my hands. 
kneeling in the confessional of a pickup truck.
i wanted to be delivered to where
the worms emerge. alive in their
porous dirt. i pictured cities
in the soil. a train stop where 
a worm sings a song about both his 
desire for & fear of the sun.
i too turn into a stain 
in the wrong light. when do you begin
packing up a heart? i tried
bin & boxes. we kissed on my sofa
until it was on the sidewalk too.
it's amazing how easily 
one life can fold into another
& they can both be yours.
i do everything i can to avoid the worms.
imagine the impulse that carries them
across each other in the vibrant downpour.
i too want to make symbols
with my body & others. 
tomorrow the survivors will be
no where to be found. back to being 
sketch-book lips & shoe lace gods.
the others will lay on the sidewalk.
i linger too long. i let the sun do
whatever it needs of me.
in this sense we are all disciple.
me, to your new-moon face.
the worms to water's wild call. 

onion grass dinner

feasting on the sharp wild,
we became boys in October's blue dusk.
held the chill like a drum &
beat with the wing-talk of birds.
stole spoons to harvest onion grass.
those white troll eyes. our translucent hunger.
i wanted to forage for new fingers.
find myself alive. stars arriving early
to glimpse us. in between fields
the foxes returned their bodies 
to their maker. a woman who lives
between corn stalks. no one knows
where she goes come harvest time.
once, i found her in the basement,
hands full of pelts. she put a finger
to her mouth & said, "hush."
i brought her onion grass bulbs
as an offering. how did you
invent your gods? peeling open
a single wild onion to find
the eye of a rabbit. blinking &
finally unfearful. the world 
is a process of return. i hope
my legs are inherited by tree bark.
thumbs, in the torsos of blue carrots.
would my eye fit inside 
the wild onion? smell of pocketknives
& perfect daylight. prying back layer
after layer to find the next illusion.
we didn't mean to eat only the onion grass
but it made us green enough 
to last through winter's
lengthening dark. 

dishwasher baby

crawling into steam. 
the tea cups of me knees.
i wanted to be a warm plate
beneath your hand. wanted a ghost
to breathe heavy on my back until
nothing of your fork remained.
a body is both a vessel & 
the vesseled. blood broken
like china. i used to be 
so delicate. used to place a plate
on my head & wear it the whole shower long.
balance, the art of not tipping
into shards. heat & pressure.
i know the plight of metaphormic rock.
that desire to shift form 
inside of polish. once, i broke a plate
& the plate was a baby. fingers reaching
for a knot in the ceiling. 
nest of glass. cooing to him & saying
"brother it will be alright." 
i put his pieces inside the machine
& waited for clean to make him whole.
if you lose the whole enough times
is there a fullness to return to?
or, maybe, is it just a doorway?
bowls & spoons make great 
passageways. all i want is to 
be cradled & pristine. it is always
too much to ask for. make me helpless
again. make me a turine
or the big-bellied metal mixing bowl.
could there be enough infancy 
to go around again. the baby arrives 
with a chipped tooth. i put her 
on the shelf next to all the glasses.
in them, her reflect twists.
the dishwasher asks for another traveler.
i close the door. 
nothing & everything is clean

score board

the baby was an ice skating rink inside me.
i sat down so as to avoid cuts & bruises.
spelled my name wrong on purpose 
so when they go back through the recordes
there will be no keeper, only 
the baseball entering a thirtith orbit.
i count the teeth a lose to gracelessness.
spin eggs to check for chickens.
a friend once asked me what my body count was
& i said i wasn't sure. it's not
the kind of thing i keep track of.
there are much more important things to count.
like tulips or heart beats or cardinals.
what if the score board rang every time
my dad said, "oh i wish i were dead."
that will shift the conversation at parties.
i'm in line to get vaccinated. against what,
who knows. i trust all machines. what else
is there left to do. i decided to become
extra-biological when everyone said 
i was just a motherboard. i count on my hand
the number of times my neighbor
shoots off a bottle rocket on his porch.
eleven today alone. the score board sighs.
we are not sure what the numbers mean.
some believe in an eye or an eye 
but i only believe in tongue 
for tongue. you turn me into a pile 
of toys i do the same to you. i don't want
to be exchanged anymore. or looked at 
like a fork could be used for me.
my mom used to count brush strokes
as she pulled the comb through my hair.
it was long & full of snakes. what would it take
to give me a zero? i crack open eggs
in search of it. all the yolks are doubled 
& tripled though. they heard the message
everything from now on is to be plentiful.
past ten, there is no looking back.
i would like to be a mother of zeros.
absolute & otherwise. here comes 
all my nothing. the score board praises me
for all my efforts. crouches & spits 
flower petals on my face. a cheer sounds.
we are all triumphant or else this is
just a formality. a curtesty. 
tell me, i need to know if i won. 

driving w/o headlights

i hovered like a helium balloon.
wore a veil of metal & weeds.
garbage summer & the mar stumbling
like a pile of papricka. blowing soot
from the window. i remember what it took
to dislodge my car from snow last year.
the gods perching on their clouds
& shedding images, as they must.
becoming the vessel of tradgedies
& canned sardines. space above the fridge.
my hand searching for you shoulder 
in the dark. hills pulsing like
the wings of a sting ray. our ocean
is only an inhale away. how long
can you survive in a nest of your own
absences? i wanted a lover of flesh
& what i recieved was a field of oils
of all kinds. walnut oil & vegetable oil
& engine oil. the urge to be bright.
reveal where the deer keep their holy books.
shadow puppets of antlers & gold.
the night creatures hidden on the sides
of the highway. no one else in the world
is awake right now. it is just me
& the promise of green signs. motels 
with neon mouths. the gas station ahead
is a mirage. really a swamp. 
really a pocket of dinosaurs. i keep going
look for any signs of sea gulls.
water fills the bottom of the car 
& then is gone with the tide. in the glove box
is a photo album. i want you to see
exactly how a shadow can become 
a traveler. sitting in the backseat
without any shoes on. i used to want
to walk everywhere with 
my eyes closed.