humid boxing ring boy body

fishing for a breath in a downpour.
my bones were so plausible.
all the feet i had on the rubber mats
of the gym. how, i could work my body
into boy somehow. in fits of arms
& collision. biting down on 
a rubbery mouthguard. drool unspooling
from the corner of my mouth. 
i found my lips in a snarl gallery.
all the boy with their born-ready shoulders.
little men standing inside boy bodies.
men standing on our shoulders.
masculinity is a school of square lives.
finding the right angles. the ropes 
building a parameter to live inside of.
he punched me in the chest & then 
the stomach. doubled over i saw myself
from above. already shucked.
saw all the threads & the miniature gender
made of glass because after all
all genders are made of glass. 
looking through that supposed-to
& already should. sweat arrives like soldiers.
they say, "you don't believe us
but you have a body." i refuse.
drink water hungrily from a folding chair
while my father tells me i am 
not a man but i did good. good for 
whatever is beside boy. spitting 
the mouth guard into my hand & seeing
how the cis boys shoved each other
like love poems. in the bathroom 
i washed my masculinity 
& patted it dry with 
the brown papertowels. told my body
to try again another day. fighting 
had everything & nothing to do 
with trying to have a skeleton.
at night, the soreness arrived
like a flock of birds. all of them calling,
"you are you are you are."
i counter, thinking, if my gender is true
then why do i have to spar
to make it legible. 

hunger

before she died 
my grandmother ate everything.
living as a coat hanger.
so much empty space. i met her
for the first time it seemed
with her hands full of cream.
she held spoons like crucifixes.
grew a three-hair beard 
& stroked it. i was too young
to understand her cravings.
the kind of hunger that laid dormant
for all her life. 
remembering how when i was small
she would point a finger 
to stomach & say to my mother,
"they eat too much." watching her
cut her round potatoes into half moons.
living on half of the half. alone 
in her apartment what kind of desire
crept from corner to corner?
living with us she stole brownies.
moved on to eating whole forks
& tureens & soup ladels.
as if by eating them she could
regain all she had given. 
a sudden shock of need. the world
had cubes of sugar lined up
to make the horizon. we let her eat
whatever she needed. picture frames then 
& the images inside. her daughter 
& her daughter's daughter. her husband
long turned into a nest of roots.
did she think "all mine--finally 
all mine"? was it enough?
she died three days after it snowed.
we had to use steak knives
to dig in the frosted dirt.
the whole time we worked she laughed
& ate her last pieces of jewerly.
a stirng a pearls. a golden locket.
a cat-shaped brooch. 

rubber glove growing

i grew rubber gloves like children
on the fire escape & on every windowsill.
lonely & drifting farther away
from the word "family."
i told myself "i can make communion
from only doorknobs & light bulbs."
curled up & became a thumb.
this is how protection began.
my simple desire to not have skin.
blue gloves & purple & white.
the distance between flower & glove & father
& little one. i was the little one
in the town of dead-faced churches.
we walked farther than the road
knew what to do with. bears taking handfuls 
of garbage back into their geodes.
i put the gloves on each day & rooted
in the sky for a poison fruit
to hold & contemplate. one summer
i was obsessed with having pet toads.
finally, i captured two & set them
in a pale of dirt. in the morning 
they were two rubber gloves.
i spoke to them. i promised 
to stare at them all day long
if that's what they needed. in the end though
everything is a glove. worn & weathered.
i can use what you said as a barrier 
between the world & whatever self
i've kept from spilling. my gloves 
were the most beautiful though
in the whole neighborhood. i harvested.
laid them down like emptied hands.
where do you go to make 
all the hands the day 
will ask of you? all you need 
is a planter & a sense of terror.
they will bloom like mothers.
or, maybe, i am the mothers 
& they are, like i originally thought
just blooming like babies do.
new & ready to by made into balloons. 

easter egg hunt

i cut my tongue into seven pieces
& slipped each inside a colorful
plastic egg. hiding them carefully
around the halls of my high school
i waited, hoping to see someone 
open them. at the farmer's market 
i used to watch the butcher 
spill tongues into jars. cow
& pig & goat. all the talking 
a heart can do. i would picture
the animals roaming around empty-mouthed.
now i know they don't distribute meat
piecemeal. the animal is felled 
like a great tree. not me though.
i go bit by bit. watched in the mirror
as my tongue grew back cyclically 
after i severed it. it is not 
a murderable beast. pale blue eggs.
telling the world what i need.
sitting in a bucket of spit. 
this is when i learned i would 
not get anything i asked god for.
better to dismantle the wanting machine
than to keep telling the body no.
finally, by the water fountain
i saw a boy open an egg. empty. 
nothing inside. i remembered the tomb
is supposed to be vacant but i wonder 
what it means that a god comes
to collect himself & not the tongues
of his beasts. what is a miracle
but a kind of plastic. nests for 
ghost birds. eating jelly beans
by swallowing them whole. there is
not enough sugar to make the day right.
i decide to open an egg myself.
find no tongue inside. just a miniature
of me screaming. close the egg to put away
that horrible sound. burry the egg 
behind the pine tree & tell no one.
feel grateful i was not the one
to discover an empty tomb. i would
have filled it with tongues.
i have always been prone to crowding
a silence. i would love to try to furnish one
as big as a divine. instead, i will
stick to eggs. i wait for my tongue
to grow back again.

sleeping in the front lawn coffin

this isn't a yard sale
but you can take whatever you can get.
the moon is cooking eggs 
on a cast iron skillet. 
someone is playing music
from a tin-man car radio &
the birds & growing two heads this spring.
what i know about sleep is that
it's made of taffeta. both stiff
& smooth. i refuse to assume
the customary dead-person position
& instead i put my hands behind my head
to recline. when was the last time
you took a good look at the world?
i try to do so only from 
particular vantage points.
here from my coffin i can pretend
i am looking back on a great story
written by many tired candles.
no matter how much we want it
& need it, there is no such thing
as a narrative. i had a friend
who died like a broken dish.
nothing is leading up to this.
a few neighbors stop 
not to pay respects but to ask
what it is i think i'm doing.
one whispers i should be careful.
actions like this can prompt 
the future. i do not talk because
i am dead & the dead do not talk
at least not on command. they slip notes
beneath bedroom doors that say,
"run away while you still have time." 
asking aloud i always say, "from what?"
no response. wisdom arrives 
in cannibal baskets. the words
eating each other until all sense
is nothing but wooden spoons 
& soup bones. a strong gust of wind
shuts the coffin door & briefly
i am nothing but a nest of fingers.
outside the world puts every tomorrow
on a windowsill for the sake
of clementines peeled & eaten too quickly.
in a sense i am burried.
who knows though what happens
on the other side of any given wall.
i crawk out & leave coffin.
a journey for another day.
it is both morning & still night.

wedding dress thicket

in a bundle of promises 
i was the veil & my face was
the sun-stung valley of daffodils.
be brief with me & celebratory.
thorns leaving their teeth marks
across my skin.
a body can become a road
of gravel or dirt of asphalt.
what does it take to emerge
a valuable? i tried to marry
every bone i encountered.
once i had a boy tell me 
he was going to make a canoe
of all the ways i was good
at laying down. looking up at the sky
& removing the blue slowly 
with a syringe. i'll save this 
for when i need to right a vow.
i don't like to make or keep weddings
but i do open them like gifts.
here is a wedding by the creek
& another on fire
in the backyard. raising a dress
instead of a flag. i am 
doing whatever the wind asks.
lace against skin. 
villages of hives rise.
my skin rejects all forms of worship.
i said, "we can make this work"
until there were no more skeletons 
to take with me to the edges
of my hunger. standing in 
the bathtub wearing 
a wedding dress & waiting 
for the storm cloud i ordered
to arrive. leaving a tip
for the movement of water.
i no longer know how to give thanks.
when i am done though
i will make a shrine for him
of tulle & glass shards.
dangerous to the touch.
beautiful, when staring at it 
from a safe distance. 

x marks the spot

where my bones are anterling
in their nests. here is where
tonight we dig like moles
searching again for the deep & dark.
underneath every designation
is another & another. i put xs
on the sun & xs on my father's back
& xs at the back of my throat.
here is where the treasure 
is a gasp of plums. sugaring 
a street of pineapple promise rings.
i burry everything that i'm scared
to lose. telling a whole year
"get into the hole." all my glasses
shot in the foot. i am not 
the map maker. that is someone else's
coping. coasters were meant 
to unbecome. the jaws of a great fish.
most of the time there is nothing
on the other side of an x.
sometimes it is better to stand
from a distance & say 
maybe maybe maybe this time 
an angel will come & unearth me
exactly as i am. i want to delve
just to find i was always so good. 
the distance between who marks 
& who find the mark & who lives the mark.
xs grow around me like dandelions.
bloom is a word only for boys now.
i buy a trowel & live inside it
while my father holds the handle.
he says, "son" & i turn. he is
not speaking to me. i draw
another x. this time i am deliberiate.
the cave is empty is empty 
is empty & always was. 

peach pit comet

we looked & saw the galaxy did not have 
all the sugar we were going to need.
what will we do with these limit?
standing on the roof like a chess set
& waiting for the comet. all day 
we made preparations. pots & pots
of caramel as offerings. put on helmets
& silenced our cell phones. afterall 
hasn't god always arrived as a form 
of destruction? i want to know a kind of love
that doesn't require debris. 
crowns of throns grow in the yard.
my brother stacks them on his head while i
i collect the rest for the burn pile. 
i'm told we learned all we know 
from our creator. the burning & the burning.
i talk to the dirt when i need roots.
no one will be martrying me tonight
not even the universe. remember being
a child with infinite pews in my heart.
how i ran them like a maze. how i walked
to the lake at night just to watch
the stars check their reflections.
my divine is jealous. my divine
weeps at headless dandelions. 
she takes a handful of peach pit 
& tosses them to create comets. 
soon the flash will arrive. i tell everyone 
it is going to be a peach tree 
that grows the largest peaches
anyone has ever seen & in the morning
when none of us are left, we will feast
as ghosts on the ripe collision. 

origin room w/o you

we were chickens & then 10 eggs
& then 10 elbows. you, the original 
portal were out buying 
model army man to speckle 
the ceiling. every wall had
a smart mouth speaking about
physics & philosophy. if a egg opens
in the middle of a forest
does the egg ever open? 
an incubator was installed 
where a kitchen is supposed to be.
heat lamps licking my face clean.
you couldn't be bothered. all of us.
i took scissors to
the where-i-came-from. you don't 
have to come from anywhere,
you know? just lie & say
the town is blowing through you.
spending all my money on 
baby names. the machine asks
what i would like to be called 
& i am never sure so i settle
on "leftover." it's fitting.
i'm the part you return to 
out of necessity. delightfult silverware.
i sit in spoons like waiting rooms.
the world is using its egg tooth again
& you are watching sports.
my elbows crack from leaning.
i could have planned a bigger entrance
one with blood & yolk. instead
i took a breath through a straw.
crushing the cardboard dream.
nothing is really recycled anymore 
we are just filling a wound with rubber.
a pit of lobsters where i was promised
bathtubs. i don't know about you
but it's better sometimes to pretend
that didn't happen. what egg?
i arrived just like this with
not a single ribbon behind me.

ghost taxidermy 

we worked with our bare hands in the dark
lifting the ghost's pelt from his frame.
everyone is a balance beam until 
there is nothing but air. a cool breeze.
not alone in the house of still-life.
tails that pace back & forth. the drawer
of glass eyes. we place the finished pieces
in the hallway where everyone was passing.
sometimes, i would sit there. making a home
in the liminal is the only way through
another needle's head. all the animals. 
we'd go out to woods & fill baskets
with their souls. glossy & satin.
a rabbit & a deer & an owl. laying them out
like paper dolls to be prepared.
once i saw a bird escape his body.
plummeting skeleton. the tools we use
are simple. thread & bone. knots like
little tongue-ties. nothing left to say.
the eyes follow us. we want to be followed.
we ask each other how we'd like to be mounted
when we move on to the washing machine
in the sky. i tell my brother 
i'd like to stand at attention.
the mobiles we make of humming birds 
& geese. i stand in a crib of my own creation.
nailing a door shut. there is an animal 
still inside. the animal is me.
howling from the stairwell. the teeth
our house grows at night when 
the taxidermy wears off & we're left with
almost bodies. still, what is there to do
if we do not preserve. how much more still
can you hold yourself. we have
a breath swallowing contest. i win
& i die just long enough for you 
to sew me a statue. gasping. color returning
to all the corners of the room.
rabbits standing on the ceiling
keepunig their secrets. a deer wandering
into the living room.