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. 

ice cream cows & hoof eating

when i say i don't want any animal products
i mean i want to burrow deep beneath 
the earth's surface & drink diamonds. 
coax the animal out of the mineral. weren't we all
once an amber-captured DNA staircase? 
cows in the field behind my television 
are aware their bodies are going towards
rainbow-sprinkled delight. they're bitter about it.
sometimes they'll go static in protest.
cows perched in waffle cones. cows laying down
in the grey before the storm. when i look at jello
it seems so harmless. once, i dated a guy
whose eyes wobbled like jello whenever he saw me.
the cows are waiting in line at the ice cream parlor.
when was the last time you tasted your purpose?
if the wordl were to collapse i would not
be the best asset. i am already ready to become
a sacrifice. i see myself under the tab
of a jello cup saying, "these are made
from the hard footsteps of goats." 
a horse once asked me if i knew there is
horse meat in some burgers. i replied
"there is some meat in everything." 
once, i opened a piece of junk mail 
& a cow slipped out. she explained she was
meant for slaughter but wanted something more.
i told her to hide & i made a tiny cow statue of her.
she's still on my desk. morally speaking,
sweet is always better than savory.
a spoon enters the reddest red & comes out
covered in mouth. i sit in a field with the cows.
i go static too & no one finds us.
an ice cream truck circles the block 
long into the night, looking for victims.

raining only dogs

you say "it's only rain"
& ignore the animals falling like luggage.
outside, on the curb, my umbrella is smashed in
by a mastiff. sky murky & urgent grey.
full of sharks. i see their fins. 
when i was a girl water used to fall in sheets. 
filled in driveway divots to make the puddles
i'd swim in. let me show you how 
to breast stroke in only an inch of water.
often i will sit the pitcher under spigot
& leave the water running. pitcher overflows.
this is where we are. in the sink
next to the dishes. trepassers in purple.
car hoods smashed in. it's only rain, i know this.
but, lately, the rain has had skulls & teeth.
has taken to making a swimming pool
of our alley. i see great koi fish 
in the rush. the dogs swim towards the horizon.
none of us are sure to whom they belong.
maybe once i was a dog who rained down
with such desperation. when there is 
nothing else left to do, the body 
finds its water & wields it. once i floated
in the ocean & felt my skin petaling away like oars.
another time, just in the shower, a black rain cloud
slipped out of my ear. thunder shook even my fingernails.
this is what i get for listening to the radio.
bodies battering all the rooves on my street.
the word "damage" means less to me each year. 
barefoot, i got out into the dampness. storm with
a thousand eyes. i take some of the dogs inside.
i feed them. this is ill-advised. reports say 
if you feed a dog, more & more will come.
i stroke their heads & say, "let them come.
it's only rain." 

vigil

i was the first one to reject sleep
in favor of knowing. cut a hole in the middle
of my mattress to remind myself of sink holes 
& impending plummets. it was indigo at first.
then just purple. then pastel. lavendar.
i smelled pine needles & cirtus moons.
my irises turned into melons. i was so so sweet.
delectable. had to resist the urge
to wake all my loved ones up to say
"you are missing so much. the night is full
of diamonds." i harvested parables. 
invented seeds. listened to all my neighbors
as they poured sleep from chimneys & windows.
if you knew where the spiders go at night
you would wear a plastic bag over your head too.
i've learned to breathe this way-- through 
all kinds of membranes: glass & burlap & plastic.
the ghosts these days are metallic anyway.
all the wooden ones degraded & turned to dust.
taken care of by the street cleaner.
from my kitchen i saw a mailbox spit.
witnessed two rabbits trading vehicles.
if no one is watching, nothing is happening.
i don't do this selfishly. this is in case
no one else's eyes are open. we wouldn't want
the world to stop. it will roll up like a rug 
if we aren't careful. you have to scour. 
you have to light candles. when i feel myself getting tired. 
i spin a top in each of my eyes. i tell the night insects
"please talk to me." they tell me pre-human stories
all in sound & color. the vermilion one is my favorite. 
standing out in the street, even the cars are dead.
burrowed next to the ground hogs. a phantom snow
is always waiting for the right season.
i open my palm & catch a baby shoe 
as if fals from a morning cloud. 

bat boxes

i tell you i want to stay the night
& you permit me. fasten a home from
paperclips & an old shoe box.
i use our evening to make a dragon
of your television. have you not noticed
there are arms hidden in every animal?
whale's phantom hand. snake's soldier stance. 
bat's meager palms. i ate gnats from around
your bananas waiting for you to wake. humans are
prone to wasting the best parts of darkness. 
sleeping bags hung from the ceiling
on meat hooks. were you not ravenous?
scraping jewels from the belly of the beast.
you think this is symbiosis. really, 
i am using you for your lamps & 
your canned beans. a bunker emerges 
in the periphery. space enough just for us.
i will tell you stories about gliding
from tree to tree in search 
of a syllable. i will tell you about 
all the lovers who turned into rabbits.
our shadows spend midnight standing up straight.
i wave to mine before he runs away, crumpled
like an old castle. i'm going to 
teach you your upside down. your inverted heart. 
take your shoes off. i'll float them
down river. finger to lips. we have to be
quiet. we have to not wake up the sun.
i used to dance endlessly until my limbs
turned to twigs. i'm going to stay 
as long as you'll have me. now, look,
above. the sky is full of ripe plums. 

tree stump

the labrinth was your body making itself.
most of the time i don't want escape.
i want exoskeleton in the washing machine
& then hours waiting to dry. i walked to school
shipwrecked. hair tangled with hay.
sometimes a head rolls off it's neck. 
sitting on the stump, we talked about 
doing drugs that none of us had. a hawk
nested in the trees above. shouted at us
to get a life. it seemed like everywhere i turned
another torso abandoned its branches.
a boys took their skin down to the butcher
to ask to be processed. we knit a quilt
for everyone who left. i sympathize though. 
sometimes the whole thing is rotted 
& all you can do is hope a seed took root. 
one day i went out to where the forest
used to tell me "take off your shoes."
i found only stumps. i stepped on them
like garden stones. i asked, "where did you go?"
the trees, of course, had been turned 
into stepping stools. after all, the world is
always just out of reach. sometimes i'll open 
the medicine cabinet & find a forest staring at me.
i'll explain, "you should be out of here."
forest doesn't listen of course. i cry
& thank the foliage & the doe & even
the ground bees hungry for ankles. 
in the dark of my bedroom i put 
my hand to my face. feel the splinter.
headbands of years. one after another.
i used to be a rolled tongue 
in the onion grass. forest brims 
underneath the covers. says, 
"it's time to worry."

popcorn

sometimes all i can do is open.
we look up at your ceiling as it turns
to snow. up the road is a field of dead tires.
rats live sequestered in their rubber.
a leg becomes a downhill story. 
out-running a whole night, we laughed wild
in the long long daylight. 
i want a birth control strong enough
to keep gravity working for me. i bloom 
less like an orchid & more like popcorn.
like i-can't-take-this-anymore. 
there is a machine for that. there is 
a doctor who knows just what to do even with
bodies like mine. i walk all the way 
to the ocean just to find it dry. i tell 
my lover we are not dying, we are just maybe
in the process of becoming a new species.
i'm hoping for scales if not feathers.
ow there is a bag of popcorn holding a ballet
in the microwave. each one of my heads
will soon be busted open. petals in the oven.
kernels where my eyes used to lay
like two purple beets. i trust nothing
about the coming autumn. there will be
corn husks & dresses made of silt.
letting the river go cold. when a seed
is past due there is nothing else 
that can be done-- it must be given back over
to the gods of the harvest. i do not know
how to grow anything but tomatos. i've decided
that's good enough though. i can live
round & red if i have to. wash my hair
in the heat of an old star. take my shoes off
& go to put them back on just to find them
full of stale popcorn. 

telephone wires for the dead

we were digging in the yard when we found the voice.
had been looking for bottle caps & coins. dirt 
in our knuckles & under nails. brothers are a framework
for unearthing. i knew duality from the way 
his arm raised as mine would fall. static & full
of juniper, the voice asked, "operator?"
& both of us shook our heads. none of us was skilled
at directing voices towards their destinations.
in fact, we didn't talk much to each other even.
the voice begged & said, "i have been calling 
for decades. every single day." the dead have phones.
i didn't ask questions. if you learn too much 
about the dead you will become one. i plugged my ears.
imagined a field of phone booths. all the dead
sitting there with a lap full of coins. calling & calling
on through their nights & days. i see my brother & i.
would he call me? would he call me as endlessly 
as i would call him? i feel the weight of a telephone
in my chest. a chord tethering me to a channel of tongues
tangled in the dirt. "hang up," my brother said.
unsure how to, we start filling in the hole we dug.
the voice became more and more static until there was
tree-rustling quiet. i should have asked their name.
i should have tried to help them. 
my brother crossed the yard alone. started digging again
without me this time. i went up to my bedroom.
put my ear to the wall as if i might hear 
the voice again. then, at the same time, in a future,
removing the phone from between my ribs
& calling my brother. he doesn't pick up.
night fell & my brother brought in a handful
of bottlecaps. left me a few outside 
my bedroom door. still covered with soil. 

heat sensor

a love poem has been detected on the paremeter.
orange like the old planets & ambling on
its six legs. i used to put my hand to your forehead
& say, "you're burning up." you were like touching
a stove top what with all your atmosphere gazing 
& your need to wear sweaters even in the heart of summer.
a good friend is someone who always wants 
to be more. imagines the two of you
flying helicopter into sunset. hungry, 
a love poem will take whatever it can get--
rain boots & ice cream cones & even sometimes 
front doors. what is a memory but a love poem
waiting to happen? latent heat. i tried so so hard
not to think too much about you. filled a tub
with ice & laid down. felt all my goose-flesh.
tried to remember how old we are now & were then.
the love poem decapitates the mailbox.
snarls. roots in the garage for bicycles.
demands a conclusion. pearl necklace. melon rind.
i keep the front door locked. dead bolt. chain.
windows shut. love poem on the porch weeping 
with a shadow of your voice. saying, 
"don't you want this?" i don't fall for its trap
but i let myself picture you with your long straight hair
& you sandaled feet. arms hugging yourself tight.
i would let you take me anywhere in the world.
sunburn me in the river of rocks. become coals
dazzling in the red we bring out only for each other.
to get the love poem to leave, i make promises 
i can't keep. i say, "come back tomorrow 
& i'll be ready." i say, "i can't escape tonight." 
the love poem, distraught, will follow
my thumb's worth of hope. tumble back into the brush
& return when it remembers again what it was like
to kiss in the november night's cold. two girls.
only the heat of our bodies & the promise 
of another sun to turn the world tangerine. 

sleep potions for feathered boys

the angels were playing crochet 
in the front lawn all night. 
everytime i'd close my eyes i'd hear
another wack or their tinsel laughter. 
stood on my bed & prayed it would become 
a life boat. orange with danger. instead
it became the shoulders of a ragged beast.
i told my imagination "no not now"
but the machine wouldn't stop.
greased motor. my heart is not solar-paneled. 
instead, it waits for the moon. craves 
persistent dark like towns where
at certain times of the year there is
no sun at all. blue-wild tumbling dark.
the sun self left to wander as if it were
a shadow. sometimes my hallucinations give me
new names. they'll say, "today you are
nothing but a birch tree" or 
"i'm going to call you daffodil."
i find a blossom under my tongue.
night grows an extra toe. i begin
to barter with the darkness. offering 
a piece of amethyst & a stray sock
in exchange for sleep. not just any sleep.
i want a sleep that turns me into a raven
or at least an angel. i yearn to be
less useful. sleep so thick it flatens
the old mountains & leaves only 
ancient roots. my eyes are paperweights.
door stops. i keep myself open,
for what i cannot be sure. the heart knows
what nothing else can. says, "awake awake awake."
neon letters whining just beneath skin.
i am making a potion though. a potion so strong
feathers will burst all across my body. 
down & flight feathers. ready for the longest
necklace of planets. for a sleep 
so thick it coats the world in glass.