vegetable broth 

grease gathering for mason jar worship.
white. slick. blubber of a moon whale.
i watch my mother bathe the left over garden.
everyone else smashing ants with their fingers 
& saying, "this has to stop." the wooden spoon
stirring carrot limbs. heat can remove
any kind of essense. pry away part of your ghost.
sometimes, in july's mirage,
i'll go outside & fill cup after cup
with my longing. the word "ache" 
is a paperweight. when the AC dies, we give it
a good shake. hold our breath as it 
sputters alive again. the pot's rounded bottom.
burner hot & red as a planet. 
when i look at celery i always see playground slides.
a hand flat against my back.
the loosening carrot fists. fingers uncurl.
i tell my mother she is a good mother 
but i say it in my head. in the kitchen
dust collections on shelves. old cook books
turn to moths that die trying to talk to 
the sun. the vegetable stock bubble & talks
about aquifers & wells. dreams of floating
& steam & cloud. so so close to air.
salt scattered into the water. each grain
dissapeared. gone to sleep. sound of spoon
against metal. smell of the word "always."
she takes a taste before putting the lid on
to let it cool. ants carry sugar
the size of their hearts toward 
all the house's seams. light above the oven.
carrot's untied shoelaces.
last to bed, i can see the cooling take place.
how, once livid, the stock becomes 
a home with a door & a living room. 

baby teeth glass

in the bedroom we talk about cell division.
i opened my mouth to show you a home video
& you told me you've watched sunflowers
jump off bridges. sometimes i want to
spoon your eyes from your head & wash them
in honey. so much about being human is
about what we cannot take back. my uncle
has baby teeth still. jagged little grave markers
yellowed from talking to the sun too long.
we make a good pair, you & i. my baby teeth 
know how to play violin. yours bash their heads
on the keys of a piano. someday, when we are old
& call ourselves "painters" when really we just
open & close the blinds. i want to pretend
i'm writing the sky. tell me what kind of cloud
you're craving. my teeth tell tall tales 
to each other like kindergardenters. 
my fingers are in a knot. i have a glass case
for keeping my real set of hands. i confess
i am prone to hoardin8g spares. spare heart
& lungs & ankles. got a flat tire once
on my way to church. god laughed like
sirens. i know very little about my own
wave length. do physics with me.
i hold your hand & you tell me not to.
make a locket of my face & hurl it
toward another galaxy where, a wandering creature
will pluck it from a tangle. cup my face
in his-her palms & say something to the effect of
"i am so deeply in love right now."

Duration 

I want to be outlasted 
By fog horns. Want a headstone 
For a placemat. Break glow- proof bread.
I take  
Measuring tape 
To observe the distance between 
My opal & skin. Inside, I am 
Tin solider & less-wooden tree. 
I am a balled up black stocking.
A ceiling fan. No one should 
Try to take this long. Will you be 
A fisherman with me? Talk to crickets 
With our eyes shut as blush compacts. 
Haul up a net of chick-a-dees.
Let’s make children from clay. 
Glaze them jade & Jupiter.
Cut the planets strings to watch them
Float to the fiber glass galaxy.
Construction is on-going. Will soon
Be wordless. I wake up to a day lily 
Sprouting from my pillow where you
Had laid your head. What use 
Is my Tuesday with the rind peeled &
Fruit honeyed. Buffet for the
Never-to-be-dead. Counting ribs,
We’re both missing one.
Licking red from fingers. More & more.
Waking up to a pair of dice.
Allergic to noon. Shining a flashlight 
In your face. 

compost room

making good on the promise,
i took soft handfuls & deposited them
behind the door of the old nursery.
you & me, we used to be blood.
used you open our veins like window blinds.
now, emptying the fridge of all its organic.
do you remember eating celery 
on the porch in winter? or cutting
a tomato down the forehead?
we had to regrow in the most urgent way.
all the ankle. all the rake.
throwing in shoes & the garden hose.
fingernails & fresh egg shells.
a whisk. a worm farm. an old photograph.
watching the warmth go to work.
it's not a place to walk through.
open the door just a crack. smell deep
& aching. how a mushroom becomes 
a boy before he is gone. all kinds 
of faces in the pile. peering from behind
a banana peel, a little neighbor girl.
under a baseball cap, a stray fox
who used to eat melon from my hand.
i have never had a green thumb.
instead i talk to my potted plants 
& tell them about each of the rooms
in my house. bed. kitchen. basement.
compost. crawl space. the compost room
spreads. i find its fresh death
in my closet. shut the door & pretend
everything is alright. then i wake up
& find the grit & the dirt reaching
beneath the bed. i suppose i am ready to be 
repurposed. decide to sleep. give it
what it wants. a school of bones.
the pink of me. the blue. the red.
gentle & patient. letting the rot get to work.
have you ever been dismantled 
like a glass of sand? pouring out.
roots weaving. light from the window 
sticking to my face. open the door.
come with me. 

smoothie machine

in the blade nest i settled 
with the tree bark & the moss.
from now on everything will be swallowed.
teeth used for necklaces. i give one
to each of the people i've ever slept with.
they wake up with a chain around their neck
& the tooth buzzing & ready.
we were bananas ripening past ourselves
towards sugar. sun in our pocketbooks.
moon waiting in the bathtub.
needed more money for useless:
gas station key chain & galloons of milk.
stood on the street corner & sold
cups full. brimming. waved at strangers 
who waved back. gave teeth away 
in the hopes they would return the favor. 
an eye for an eye 
is only true about eyes. 
i threw in old sweaters & 
a hair brush. the smoothie machine laughed
& struggled but finally found 
the nothing texture. we drank mangos
in the train station. leaned against
a scuffed wall 
while knees tried to catch 
their directions. always uptown.
window shopping in each others faces.
a handful of blueberries. a sock.
hair clips. pocking a tea bag 
just in case of hot water. a round 
wooden table taken apart until
it could fit. i carry a straw 
in my backpack. always prepared.
most of life is better taken
like a coarse river & less like
a still life. it's about finding 
where the liquid could arrive.
salt on the table. a pinch
over the shoulder. 
leaves you hungry. searching the house
for just one more. just one more. 

renaming bones

the forearm is full of pistil.
not gun but gone. a mouth full of hurry.
five new kinds of salsa in the sunrise.
my feet full of gumballs & come on come on.
more than enough match box cars.
the banister you held to make your way
down to hell. i hear they have
a washing machine who will sing you to sleep.
legs full of siren & syringe. an ambulance 
is my brother & he goes back & forth
full of blood. we could eat outside
even though it's raining. we could
wash out skulls out like mugs. i want to call
a rib a jaw harp. want to played & fingered.
call me communal & calliope. no use
in sleeping when the bouncey ball
still has so much farther to go.
looking at the x-rays i get what they mean.
i am terribly ordinary when it comes down
to the scaffolding. they point my pelvis & say
"what should we call this?" i say "cutting board"
without a single thought. i used to love
a bone collector. he grinned & showed me
the closet where he kept them. 
each wraped in silk. "this one is from
a boy i kissed in a corn field" &
"this one is from the jaw of 
a terrible chef." i should have asked
to touch them but instead i asked 
which one he'd want of mine. gave him
a single tooth & i feel him sometimes
chewing with it. we all find ways
to make use of each other. i removed
one of your ribs without telling you.
you had so many. you didn't need it.
when i see it in the bottom of my backpack
i do not call it "rib." i say
"hello waning moon, i am here."

cicada wreath 

welcome to my plush madness.
i have a secret mouth for 
the occasional neccesary scream.
once, a lover took me out to the edge 
of his favorite woods & said
"this is where i let myself go."
he shrieked & i tried but couldn't.
it's far too intimate a thing to be heard
by trees & rocks
there is a species for my home.
five legs & the missing sixth.
opening all the windows to teach 
the children how to fly. we used
to holiday all the time. set up
thumbs worth of fire. harths 
to lay down in as logs.
hasn't everyone's father cut down
their favorite tree? haven't we all
wanted to be an iris?
in the linen closet, everyone
can be a ghost. green lights 
for guests. we walk without breathing.
exhausted, i'll often cross my legs
until they turn to tails.
who is keeping track of the seasons?
not me. not ever since the storm.
you think you're done seeing your sons
& then all of a sudden here they are again.
hungry & perched in the sink.
i want to be washed like a potato.
the lover, he was not the kind of man
who you would expect to scream.
this is why his sound haunts me.
how long had he saved it for?
is there one inside me? dormant?
the cicadas, they know what it means
to be patient. either that or 
their bodies betray them.
refuse to break surface. talking
to dirt & saying, "today today today."
no not yet. then, haunted daylight.
cloud blur & yellow. 
standing small & loud in the grass
while windshield wipers
do everything they can. 

buzzcut dreaming

glass is the color of holding.
who doesn't want to take off more
of their body? what can be shed
& severed? i was a doorknob 
or a dropped peach in the valley.
winter shucked us & drank our salt.
snow up to my heart. the wind chimes
choked like geese. you were elsewhere
growing your hair long & red.
every mirror asked for a piece
of my long-gone girlhood. our attics
full of intimate dust, sighed when we woke. 
i collected my dead faces
in little jars for later. 
then, i had a sock for storing 
plastic hair. dolls bald as thumbs.
knitting wigs in the dark. hair in
all directions. the trees dreaming
of hair down to their waists.
dreaming of hopscotch & stones.
foot print in my scalp from where
god walked his angels on all fours.
my bed a little coffin floating
in the lehigh river. they windows
of stone buildings turning to eyes.
what body out there isn't watching?
at night, i look up at the moon
& see the back of my own head.
i'm shaving the hair away 
& it's floating down to earth
landing amoung the oldening leaves. 

midnight

i cut the apple open & saw your face there.
closed the halves & didn't eat for five years.
in that time, developed a craving
for milk. drank air until it thickened.
with a paring knife i cut holes 
in the night sky. save the swatches so i can
ask you what texture our unfettering was.
when did you look at me & decide,
"this man is a ghost"? if i had been looking
i could have put the flashlight to your eyes.
cutting the fingers off forks. taffy night
pulled sweet & thin. a membrane to slip under.
veil or gown? marrying beads of caramel.
midnight on the banister & midnight falling
loud as fruit. loud as a great metal pot.
we will certainly be parents in the other life.
you with an apron skeleton & me
with a hammer for a heart. it's a dangerous
hour. the murky joy. mundane thresholds:
closet, casket, creamery. a cow
laying dead on the sidewalk on her way
toward cement. you should not be here.
this is my bed. my sleep. my darkness.
putting a line of masking tape across the room
to indicate where you begin. crossing
the line just to feel the vibration
of your old breath. a lover is
an always vanishing thing. when will you
return? when will you never? how do you
count the apple seeds already in your blood?
when you miss me, do your day lilies 
open new faces? mine do & they all
have your same tongue. 

mornings

i wake up before you 
& find the sun in a can of peaches.
stand in your kichen
& chat with the bamboo plant before
asking the mountains what time it is.
they are always unsure. nodding 
their tree-lined heads.
i wash dreams from my face.
in the night, i saw us
walking in a snow storm.
white swallowing each street lamp.
i held your arm for balance
& you held mine. a swing dangled
from the moon. pushed you
& we kissed like high schoolers.
in your city, roads twist & knot
beneath the spilled stars. i wake up
before you & think
"my life is real." you make my days
split open fresh & orange.
last night on your street 
i saw our shadows &, startled, i said
"i mistook our shadows for ourselves."
there is so much of you to love.
my shadow runs his fingers through
your shadow's hair. i wake up before you
& see our life in galloons. full & 
overflowing. i wake up before you
& slip back in bed where your skin
is a kingdom. where i tell my shadow 
"this is how i want to spend 
each eggshell." open & bright.