self portrait w/ self destruction

prying petals off my face 
until only the anther is left. 
who isn't a yellow smudge of pollen? a baseball
through a window & back again. knocking
a tooth on a tombstone. filling shoes
with dirt & welcoming the fire ants.
it is not summer if i say it's not summer.
a wind picks up & momentarily frees us.
church on the moon. jesus on the moon.
it's one thing to die for other people
but a totally different thing to 
die for yourself. a finger trap.
cheat me out of my sunday. can opener
between my shoulder blades. a circle
through which birds come & go. 
the blood, like a creek, contains 
crayfish & stray hooks. coals to walk on
towards the bounce castle. i am 
walking backwards. trust fall. trestle.
the train has a plan to smash me
easy as a vase. i once held
a lily in my throat but i swallowed
too hard. most things are my fault
but especially broken bones.
i often go out into the middle of the street
& say "come & get me" to passing trucks.
they honk their horn & shout.
when it is winter, who will i convince?
who will believe how hot it used to be
inside my greenhouse heart? 
there is a fire & then their is
sleeping. duct taping my tongue
back into my face. counting 
white guitar strings on my arms.
haven't you ever set out
to make a scar?     

tracing paper

i asked you to lay still so long
you became a photograph. smile the size
of a garbage can lid. teeth like triptychs.
laid a veil down. saw your features 
like questions. where to draw the first line.
how to remember the color of our feet
in the mud. that one afternoon 
i spent hours wanting to kiss you
until the sun ripened into the moon.
the dark made herons of our young girl bodies.
creek spilled from a slit in your leg.
a television turned black & white
& we watched as the static gods prayed
to each other. i could have been
your first attic. could have held
crumpled sweaters & warm dust. light
creating spider circuses in my brain.
here is your shoulder. here is the distance
between old skin & new. our knees 
grazing each others. smell of loud grass.
a curfew like a skirt hem touching
oranged horizon. wake up now. i want to be
your sapling. i want to be watered
by august. count your freckles like
stepping stones. follow them through 
the paper to where i assemble you
& you me. a finger following my hip bone.
fireflies hovering in their angelhood. 
 

haystack in a haystack

outside the 7/11 we'd drink 
our brains blue. you, tall as 
a water tower & me with lavendering lips.
in a dream my father dies & comes back to life
to give me a bag of animal feed.
we raise cows only the cows aren't cows
they're ducks. the crops don't grow this year
& we all learn to eat ideas. me saying,
"salvation" & you saying "will you please."
in the desert, you used to say,
wild pigs would run in herds like 
kindergarten. i catelogue your textures
so that when i close my eyes
i can run my hands across the truth.
hand-sewing pant ankles because i'm short.
nothing to do with the rainforest at all,
we used benches like match books. 
an eagle delivered me a bible one night
& i opened it to find all the pages blank.
i drew wildflowers. how "consume" means
to separate parts which then cannot be
reunited. inside the husk each corn kernel
dreams yellow. dreams of becoming a star.
how many times have you been let down gently?
asking the wind to make a feather of me.
you & i in a brief green rapture.
god with a flashlight on our faces
looking for what to leave & what
to take. midnight reaching for a closet door 
& touching cool sand. you standing in the corner
tall as a water tower. eyes wide open. 

pineapple psychosis

sometimes it's pleasant to be elsewhere.
a soft needle in my arm tells me 
i am a catapult if i need to be. the bathroom
is sewn with ants & a centipede is playing cards
with the spider. often a voice will tell me
& i'll say "i don't think i can." 
shoes in my closet like latent children.
pineapples in their cages. thick feathers.
bird's nest soup for dinner. only one fork
& it's learning how to swim backstroke.
a man used to put his open hand on my back
& i'd have to shoo him away. no no not here.
not while the ceiling tiles are playing bingo.
sitting at the dining room table & across from me
the grandfather clock purses his lips. i live
far too not-alone. counting my fingers to be sure.
my alarm, a little dead bird saying
"wake up wake up." shadows forming
a brotherhood. i cover my eyes & my vision
is maroon. a sack of marbles is always also
a school of eyes. blinking the sound away.
seeing a haunting basil taste. taking my shoes off
one by one & laying down to rest. barking 
corridor. no one hear what i hear, do they?
i plug a speaker under my tongue & all that plays
is leaves rustling. i never meant to be
the television insided the television. 
take a knife to parse the nowheres from
dirt. a tree squeals. my room fits in 
my wallet. carry myself to the sidewalk.
bus passes me like a whale. 

pile your strawberries

pile your strawberries
where the birds can't see them.
ripen to turtle hearts.
the bog is calling all the girls down.
a ribbon of algae. warm lake.
geese sewing dresses from old silk.
but you have strawberries 
& no one else can touch them.
place them understones & in
the thoughts of strangers.
a man walking by with a fishing pole 
now thinking "strawberry."
strawberry like colonies of jam.
mother holding out a spoon & saying,
"would you like a taste." i always do.
sweet boiled berries. wearing sugar 
to the school dance. no one else
with a single strawberry. the gym
late at night. strawberry-less.
well, until you arrive with one
tucked behind your ear. there isn't enough
rambling in this world. go on & on
& tell me what you eat when no one else
is looking. don't eat them. not yet.
ripening takes patience. years of cradling.
i was a baby once & my flesh was pulp. 
leaves grew from my skull &
my caretakers would prune them.
we could have been a backyard or a brush.
more strawberries than you need but
that's not true because you always
need more strawberries. sleeping in
a glass bowl in the company of strawberries.
bruising like infants. 
nothing left to do but wait. 

July 

I set a bowl of milk out 
For my heart to drink. You slept 
All my life inside the mountain.
Ate quartz & shale. I shaved my head
Into a mason jar & watched it turn
Silver. Breakfasting under a waterfall.
Which one of your pets 
Died first? How old were you when
You first tried to pocket the moon?
A thief, I have always been prone 
To summertime. Saved my own egg shells
For a future ritual. I use Venus  
as a quarter sometimes.
I’ll be the gumball machine 
If you’ll watch me descend. 
Nothing beautiful is sturdy.
We broke our legs & spent all the orange.
Emptied swimming pools 
with our longing. Nightfall heavy
& thick with cicada wings. 
Could we have kissed 
Like tree branches 
or deliberate 
As a movie screen? I’ll never know 
So I come here. Swallow weights 
Known only by cloud families. 
Watch my father spend himself 
Above a factory. Rain & dust.
Your ghost smells like lavender
& corn husks. 

caramel skulls

i was made from boiled sugar 
in the backroom. every shut door 
gave me breath. ink in the ink well 
turned silver with with my sweetness. 
not a ghost but a ghost clipper. 
trimming the edges 
where there used to be ruffle.
tell me you love me like 
you will never cross the river. tell me 
you will stay awake past the death of the moon.
i have been keeping vigil as the sun
undresses & crosses arms over chest.
in my bowls i am often not the spoon
or the strawberry. who taught you red?
who did you eat past their limits?
i have a draw full of eyelashes
in case i have to go anywhere tonight.
stirring my heart with cubes 
of salt. the party was made from 
icicles. we covered our heads with 
our hands. i needed more. cut a hole
in your door with a paring knife.
called you "pear." soft as a word.
my pillow full of nowhere. come, please.
i need to be handled. i am turning 
the volume low as it will go.
can you still hear the bicycle?
i am not on my way. i am backwards 
in the boat. the river is rewind
& i follow like a fruit fly. 

tethered

when the atoms speak to each other
they talk of distances. holding hands
they whisper a story about stolen acorns 
& the recluse sugar we wanted to eat.
i am touched by a long stick from the yard.
bamboo grows in my living room like television.
once an ad told me "i guarantee" & i thought
"i have never been so certain."
seeing the atom like a ripe cherry
i tried to bite down hard. my tongue
is an ugly worm of need. my father's atoms
are drunk & floating in amber. looking up
at an old over-used sky. i take mine
down to the laundry mat to clear them up.
fresh smell of "alright alright." watching
the little spheres tumble in a machine.
i take my composition to the playground later
to research childhood. did i have one?
is it too late? sipping a pine tree.
sticky cones for dolls. the atoms are saying 
"nevermind" & they are letting go. 
i am troubled deeply by this. i take everything 
as an omen because it is. a dead bird is always
a sign of a car crash or a broken heart.
you were the one who told me that sometimes
atoms link up together. hold tight. 
talk & talk for hours. for every scientist 
there is a lover painted on a shower curtain.
i tell my atoms to kiss again. 
spend all night at the cutting board
trying to slice on in half. i don't want
destruction i just want to see inside.
but maybe inspection is a form of desctruction.
my atoms are all pink. well, not all.
one is lavender & one is bruise-blue.
here let me show you them. no microscope needed.
plug your ears & your eyes. 
yes, there they are.

several ways to tie a tye 

go for the throat. a snake
in the bathtub. we held our manhood
like a wrist. when was the last time
you were willingly tied to the tree?
in the yard, everyone is a post.
i look at myself in the mirror 
& slip fabric beneath collar. consider
making a simple knot with the paisley tie.
i learned to be a man incompletely
through slideshows in the shower
& neighborhood boys on bikes.
i played baseball with leaves.
tying the tyes together to make a chain.
rapunzel in the attic writing
a horror novel about girls who want 
to be handsome. guarding the vein.
dinner with loved ones in which 
the tie is vestigial. pink halos
around my neck. around my wrist.
this is where i was tethered. this is
where my body slipped free gasping.
hardwired to forget, i draw diagrams.
i write step by step instructions.
when my father gets ready he becomes
a statue at the bathroom mirror.
he does not smile. the tie makes herself.
his hands know routine. he becomes 
beautiful. combs his hair. brushes his
parchment teeth. i take a dime's worth
of lotion & rub it in between my fingers
before i go searching again. 
i don't own any tyes. 

candied scorpian 

i wanted to run the knife
through sugar. with dried figs in my pockets,
i coaxed spiders from their bitterness.
taught the fox to waltz. in the graveyard,
using a tomb stone as a coffee table
we read the news & decided the world 
wasn't the world anymore. watched as
an airplane crashed into a jello mold.
witnessed the death of the final birds.
each turned into feathered tortes.
what does it mean to truly swallow?
in my chest i felt the insects 
as they rebeled against destiny.
some bugs had rosary beads. some were
rosary beads. god tastes like smoke 
& oranges. a pile of rind. candied scorpians
fresh from between the floor boards.
removing the stinger with two fingers.
a jar of venom. a jar of poison. 
the scorpians, eaten whole, awake
inside my ankles. whispering their sugars.
trying to gasp. i want to consume 
everything that could kill me. press car rides
between my ribs. swim with rocks.
ask the bear for a spare coin. 
the bus route is a spaghetti zoo. no telling
what street will be the next ice berg.
one more bite & then we can head out.
teeth to the moon. cutting out lips
on the rims of soda cans. the dream
is carbonated. i am never full.