hide & go see

from this vantage point 
i notice your collection of glass eyes.
learn to lodge myself
behind clock faces & in the blades
of ceiling fans. watch as
arms & wings move in front of me
making an animation of your life.
the distance between "your life"
& "our life" is a slingshot letter.
i pick up the twig & snap it in half.
look now we're whole. one wonderful seeking. 
who was the last person you made
a drawer for? the last 
between-the-ribs shrine
with a lit tea candle? i cover my face
& tell you to try & see me.
i'm at the bottom of one of my mother's
old purses. i am writing about
being struck with a broom handle
as a boy. it is amazing how collision 
is all it takes to become a monster.
& by monster i mean 
a boy. & by a boy i mean 
something hidden even from 
myself. i bought binoculars
& a microscope. when i say "ready or not"
we are always the "or not."
how does one prepare themselves
to be a subject? a submission?
i stood in the middle of the hallway
& let the glass eyes spill
from underneath your bedroom door.
you said, "here i come." 

accelerated lawn

i wanted a rapid nuclear melody.
took handfuls of fertilizer out 
to the green. under the dirt 
worms were knitting themselves 
into a great war blanket. 
the grass's teeth shown shiny 
& white. i compost another dream.
watch mushrooms grow in frills.
a pod of dophins leave the ocean 
with freshly evolutioned legs
& i wonder what i'd have to do
to go in the other direction.
take paring knife to make gills.
mutilation is a process of becoming
closer to the self. or unless 
i am not someone you should ask about
a "self." once i saw my heart 
on a towel at a yard sale.
a yellow sticker read "25 cents."
i did not buy it. now it belongs
to an old man who pushes a shopping cart
of trinkets in & out of his mouth.
we buy a sprinkler & can't work up the courage
to dance in its fire. seams of 
water landing all across the lawn.
there is no mower. there has never been
a mower. a blade exists beneath me 
always whirling. i live a wrong-step
kind of life. i spend all day counting
the blades. these are each mine. 
i imagine a lover counting the hair
on my head. i often mistake 
attention to detail 
for love. or maybe it really is
what it means to care for someone. 
to memorize them to the point at which
you could make a replica if need be.
i lay down in the grass & it swells
taller & taller around me until
the sun is hairy & feminine. 
enveloped, i dream 
of leap-frogging binaries. hands 
on the shoulders of a lawn
as it becomes drift-worthy cosmos. 

orchard

in the stairwell, the apples trees
took their vows. snaked up banister
& rooted on every stair. all august 
they'd bloomed trailing their petals
throughout our apartment building. 
i'd come alone to tell them about you
saying, "i'm in love" over & over.
with them it didn't feel like obsession.
the trees wanted to hear everything.
as i spoke the apples swelled
to the size of my hands. 
one apple, ripe & blushing, fell 
into my lap each time i joined them.
as a boy, when i used to work at the orchards
the trees were much more reserved. 
stood in their rows & bore fruit like helmets. 
here, the trees laughed & flourished. 
sometimes it is a delight to be 
where you do not belong. invited 
song birds to sit & sew table clothes.
when i love someone everything becomes
fruit. plums in the hall closet.
strawberries in the cutlery drawer.
i filled baskets with the apples 
& delivered them to neighbors.
made sauce & butter. my bones 
smelled sweet & red. then, i'd crawl
into bed next to you. smell the soft branches
of your hair. you'd ask me 
what i'd been up to & i would always lie.
these were my private orchards & fields.
there is something strangely personal
about love. i always saved the seeds. 
brass key to my apartment. 
more apples than i could ever eat. 

fresh paint

i'm as impatient as webbed frog hands.
i don't take my shoes off inside
in case there's a need for running away.
keep the windows unlocked. talk wildly 
to strangers. open their palms & write
my telephone number & say, "in case
you ever need anything." call me your 
pocket knife. i'm ready to peel an apple
or a heart. i'm as impatent as a fortune
& in patient too. wearing a hospital gown
all the to church. pew is both a place
to become a treasure & the sound a gun makes.
i could lie & say i didn't read the sign
but i wanted to touch. each morning 
a man comes from my past to paint 
my wall. sometimes, if i'm good, 
he'll let my choose the color. 
sometimes, if i'm good, the wall will 
refuse to dry & i can press my whole hand
into the color. i collect my own hands
like state quarters. what would you do
if you could see all the ribbons 
from your hands strung out around the room?
i try to untangle them. it's really no use.
better to accept paint & knots.
do you remember when i showed you 
my closet full of clocks? well,
truthfully, only some of those were clocks.
most were just waitings. how long until
the next coaxt. i'm as impatient
as an ambulance bird. i'm as impatient as
an ice sculpture self portrait. 

in the hopes i'll never be valid 

or reasonable or affirmed 
in just the right way. i look to lemmings
for inspiration. how a jump can be 
natural & neccesary. i am often wrong
about my own needs. i crave ledges
& too-soons. online i order boxes 
of cereal to stack & make a house.
i live sustainibly or in other words
i consume less & less each day. call me
a great decresendo. the way a snail loses 
her body as she asks questions.
out of the three pigs, i am the pig
with the house made of bricks only
the bricks are really styrafoam 
& the house isn't a house but a lean-to
with a static television inside.
i don't need whatever it is that could come
from recognition. my gender is 
too purple for a name. i make it a point
to cut every mouth i see into cubes 
like melon. most of all though 
i am not viable. the life that lives me
is a dust ferris wheel. has no heart
of its own. i'm not a parasite but worse.
i'm porifera. water for blood.
used to wash away others dead skin.
but this is how i want it. not a plausible bone
in my body. not a sliver of credible gender.
here is where the instinct comes in.
where other animals tell me 
how to paint my skin turtle-shell.
& the truth is i never needed 
the field researchers. i have seven species 
just in my hands. i was never
trying to be convincing. 

prayer to god for a more dangerous gender

may i wear burning bush dresses.
watch my hair catch. singe past bone.
turn diamond from the heat. hoard pearls
beneath my tongue. a dress is always a portal.
when i was a boy-girl, my sex lived inside
a taser. may my sex dwell only in ocean trenches
where, pryed open by tectonic plates, i sigh volcanic.
may i cut off all my hair
& it grow back indigo. may all my lovers
know my name without me having to speak it.
a name is a kind of dress. may i be, 
as often as possible, a boy in a dress.
at the dawn of gender there was only green.
drying my old hearts in the sun like prunes.
please, i do not want to be valid or true.
i only want icicles dangling from my every move.
thighs made of swimming pools. a biology 
without & tunnels. may women see me & think
"i no longer crave sisterhood." men graze
in the meadows of my shoes. a full-length mirror
to drink from. neighbors pouring salt circles
around their homes. i want an infectious gender.
for everyone on my block to wake up
& crave lavender. mouthfuls of purple.
closing our eyes for a whole day. may i 
only sing siren-voiced. may my songs 
lead ships on dry land. streets flood 
with pleasure. every mailbox is
a sex organ. opening the lid. slipping 
my hand inside. envelops of "yes, more."
may my hands always both ignite 
& cool. may i be as wet as morning grass.
may my gender arrive & depart
like a moth to a light. head blaring 
to meet the false sun. 

 

doll house w/ mice

pretending to be human?
i wonder aloud as we watch mice
make their way to doll house.
they carry pocket watches & stolen sugar.
stand on plastic beds & peer out
windows. the doll house is a bisection.
a dream clock & a soiled planet.
door bell rings again. knock knock.
is it our house or the doll house?
the doll house. one is the mother 
& one is the father & the others decide
to be children. imagine picking 
your family title out of thin air?
they put on clothes. we undress.
mice making plastic dinner. us opening
a can of ravioli. two spoons. 
mice washing their hands & faces.
you combing my hair. knots like
new knuckles. i don't want to miss
a moment of this house. ask the mice
if they want to be big balloons like us.
the top of my head skirting ceiling.
mice playing tiny pianos & inventing manners.
dictionaries in their hears.
dining room table. our mother sleeping
like a den of pillows. the mice mother
laying in the bathtub considering 
graveyards & burials. wooden spoons
for all of us. come on now,
i plead. wouldn't you like 
to eat gold from tupperware?
babies turn to shoes. you leave 
for midnight soccer practice
or basketball court dancing.
i close the doll house. stop watching.
open a window & consider tossing
the doll house out. watch it grow wings.
watch it fly south for the winter.
i don't. instead, i toss out
a dinner plate. hear it shatter 
on the driveway. my father returns
& leaves in the same breath.
the mice discuss the world "generation."
i listen & take notes.

chess

i taught my knights to walk 
from either corner of my face.
once we were the kingdom.
i felt my flesh checker 
as i got older. castles gliding 
razor like across the moore. 
once, i played with death. 
challenged him to a match 
on my tongue. 
he folded his hands in his lap
as i tried to corner his queen.
two of them dance sapphic
in their rows. who hasn't 
been bisected by their own color?
shadow meet daylight. here & then
gone. somedays, just a king remains.
stalks the edge of my bones.
remembers the days
when his round-headed children
marched straight forward 
to their destruction. i am 
a series of children's crusades.
the bishops's sign of the cross
over their foreheads. all the gone pieces
at the bottom of a well
in my sternum. i followed the rules
for how to depart. clean & precise.
this is how the left side of my face
became a shadow too. sitting 
at a halved board. king 
on either side of a table. 
i feel the patterns of my two male 
& two female & two knight. they keep 
me wide awake with their plotting.
i spend a day only killing sideways.
then, follow a holy man to the edge
to make up for what was neccesary.
a girl living under the crown 
like a goat beneath trampoline

quilt

in the garden, you shed patches
like a dogwood tree. i followed you.
i caught every single one:
your paisley laugh, your polkadot mornings,
& your curious pure blue stripes. 
then, alone, i sewed them
in rows of eight. watched the quilt swell 
to the length of my tiny bedroom. 
slept encircled in your acres.
how can we begin to measure land? 
same as we do our bodies.
i take scissors to cut stray thread.
wipe my face off in a fogged mirror.
outside, every single tree is ripe 
with red apples. you are long ago a voicemail.
captured & repeated. clothe torn 
into so many pieces. sometimes i wonder
who, if anyone else, sews together instants.
takes a needle from the desk drawer
& selects the maroon thread?
when i'm wrapped in the quilt 
i almost believe you are alive again.
most day i don't believe in girls at all. 
animated in each seam. you used to 
let your hair down only on the graveyard hill.
pocketed the smoothest rocks. listened
to autumn exhale her orange.
all across the pennsylvania wilderness
leaves are turning into creek water vessels
add another row of squares to the quilt. 
fold so it will fit beneath my bed. 
ambulance sirens spill their pins 
across the floor. more patches descend 
from the ceiling: a snapped twig,
a merri-go-round, & an orchid. 

volume

i found the dial in the basement floor
between boxes of broken christmas ornaments
& my father's rusted screwdrivers.
i had gone down there in search of the ghost
of our old turtle who used to sleep down there
in a swimming pool all winter. he was no where
to be found but i am prone to scouring.
the size of my fist, the dial scream to be whirled.
above, the family was sitting in a portrait
watching the rerun television or in their own 
caverns building minecraft cathedrals. 
i wish i could see a card board box 
of all our secrets. i want knicknacks of what
we're hiding. my heart would be a silver dish.
i got on my hands & knees to twist the dial.
as i did i heard the world get louder & then softer
when i turned it the other way. i hummed aloud
to test my own voice, turning from mother 
to humming bird to lawn mower. my voice 
filled the stone walled basement. too i could hear
upstairs the talkshow voices eating each other
& my brothers thumbs becoming obelisks. i asked myself 
would you live in a louder or a softer world?
immediately, turned to knob down as low as it could go.
reveled in the swelling silence. stomped my feet.
shouted into the basement's cool air. 
the house seemed to pearl away. smooth & opalescent. 
no my corners or doors. my family's necklace clasps
clinking. teeth turned cotton-balls. i don't know 
just how long we stayed like that. volume turned
down to zero. i knew at one point
my bones were round as hula-hoops. then there was
a grasp. fingers to dial. all the angles 
returning. foot steps above. the dial turned 
slightly up. i left it. put a milkcrate 
over top its face. slipped away back upstairs.
still, when i close my eyes, i see its face.
notches all the way around. the quiet
waiting for me like a porceline bowl.