washing rice & hanging it out to dry

we are called to eat our elephants 
one grain at a time. but, i am too busy 
with the sink & the blue sound of soap.
i watch you as you swish the rice.
each fleck of bone. i imagine rice growing
from graveyards & church courtyards.
plucked one fragment at a time.
this is how i find myself living,
morsel to morsel. on my thumb i sketch
a sunset & press it into a lined-page.
i want someone to scrub me clean.
your knuckles, like bouys. my family is
driving to the ocean as we speak
with a trunk full of rice. our daily 
pilgrimages. how we choose to relate
to salt water. gulls sifting the rice
from a dark storm cloud. diving 
into the water to wash each grain.
this is what each of us must do.
invent polish for the rest of our lives.
who doesn't want to come apart like rice?
i opt for stickiness. to be served 
like a little round mountain in a tiny bowl. 
this time, let my murk be released 
by nothing but water. pristine 
from every possible edge. 
you pick up a handful & tell me
"look-- it is almost ready." before you
i never washed rice. nearly transculenct,
the grains grin. almost teeth, but not quite.
something further than teeth.
wing buds. tear ducts. the future eyes 
of storms. ready for the pot & wooden spoon. 

beard of bees

trust begins with the chin.
when i first came out as a man
someone told me, "you're going
to have to shave all the time."
the bees make a hive
in my gender. omens of future candles.
arriving on the oldest air.
the bees have lantern 
in their yellow & brass trinkets
dangling in their thoughts.
whose bell is ringing?
i treat razors like gardening tools.
a weed opens from my neck.
i want to be pollenated.
to bear apples & plums.
feel seeds heavy with future.
the bees know all there is to know
about skin. each lands & nestles
in my warmth. rows upon rows 
of visitors. what is the distance
between bee body & my flesh?
whatever it is, it lessens.
soon they are all thrumming.
my face, the face of a drum.
bees talking about bloom & butter
& believing in ghosts.
bees on  my top lip. their fur
& their sticky legs. closing my eyes
i dream i am made of nothing
but bees. soon the hive will
call me to return. i will be
thousands of fragments
each searching for their own
moles of sweetness.
but, for now i am just
a boy inside a gender
inside a flock of bees.
one whispers a secret
into my ear. no, i can't 
tell you the secret.
if i did, the bee would return
disgruntled about our broken trust.
instead i will tell you
before he departed he said,
"you can always come home
to the hive." i nodded
even though i'm not sure how. 
pat my face dry. swish 
a razor under warm water.
all the tiny hairs in the sink.
the legs of bees.
pollen on the windowsill.

femme

like any good binary
i am my best in the dark.
sometimes a fishnet 
is all you need to be a real boy. 
often, in shadows, a bird
will briefly become a fish.
flash of scales. this is why 
all birds roost by the water.
like all binaries, i am 
sort of lying. did you know
the moon is just a reflection
of the soon on the infinite water?
lying again, or am i? i grew 
as a little boy. my face lived
on a penny until i turned it over
& became a monument. where 
do you salvage your other sides?
like a sock, my father curls up in the dark.
i peer in his bedroom door 
just in time to see him 
as an old woman knitting
endless scarves. what is the opposite
of an egg? i'm asking because
they are something else then in the cartoon.
their secret little lives as needles.
you found the light switch in my throat
& asked "what does this do?"
before, flicking it & watching me
turn into a hydrangea bush. 
i sigh, saying, "i wanted roses." 
what is more femme than 
a thorn? than a tangled mess of green?
i take you on a cobblestone road
towards an old barn where 
all the old genders go to graze.
i am the neither & the all & the always.
when i put on a wig, if bursts into 
chicken feathers. i want nothing
to do with hunger. instead i will be
hungry. if you put on what you need
like stockings it will have no choice.
opening my mouth i tell you "quick look!"
you catch a glimpse of my teeth
as blossom buds.

motorcycle hatchery

i was the reved engine of your expectations.
inside the cement shells of future gods,
the yolk is eggplant purple & iridescent.
along my street men become dragons
in their brief night rides. they are trying
to be born. not again but for a first time.
upset at every lack, i hurl eggs 
at the moon. luckily, none smash on her face.
sometimes i feel like my impulses are not me
but then, frightefully, i rememeber they are.
my brother once punched a hole 
in our dining room wall. i want to frame it
& call it "family portrait." you talk 
unkindlt about your tarantula, saying
"she's only a collection of electrical impulses."
how many motorcycles has she counted today?
has she considered what it's like
to be as fearful as a mammal? i can't cry at all
but i can swallow a drop of oil 
& wait for rainbow pools to come from my eyes.
we all have this desire to rip a hole
in the egg. for some it is an egg tooth
& other it is a motorcycle. helmets have been
growing on trees lately. you don't think of me
like i think of you. though, unfortunately,
this is a summary of being a species. 
i invent a machine that will always 
drive the distance. no longer will we sulk
like geese. i tried once to plant a peach tree.
pressed the pit into your chest while you slept.
instead a motocycle passed by the house
at that same minute & hour every night.
no peaches to be seen. i made a fist once
for so long that when i opened it 
there was a baby chick inside. 
what makes you soft? give me more of that.

wax lips

talk to me like a leather saddle.
in the candy shop our mouths
were ripe as honeydew. you dripped
from your bowl of bruises 
& i smiled like only a false god can.
making a shrine for juju bees.
praying from their arrival. wads
of pink gum in our hair. i grew
to the size of a jaw breaker.
i broke a picture frame intended 
to house the whole world. a lollipop 
growing from what wa supposed to be
a tomato plant. i eat a balanced diet 
of red dyes. putting on my artifical hair
to go out in search of a nice man. 
find them knotted in their own cotton candy.
pink-haired, i found a forest of cubicles.
in each a vending machine promised
only peanut m&ms. a room of goats 
wearing wax lips. the mouth is
the most edible organ. i took yours
in mine. you took mine & ran away.
shared it with neighbors until 
the whole town had a tooth 
& a sweet cherry flavor. melting 
on the perfect sidewalk. i am learning
brevity in the form of candy watches.
biting time in the face. you telling me,
"i have no mouth beneath this one"
when i go to take off your wax lips.
"where is it?" i ask. you evaporate
under the pressure to be real.
i don't blame you, i would too.
there's always another body part though.
don't have a foot? here's an ear.
i keep a spare closet of pinky fingers.
we spread gummy spiders out on the table.
i say, "they look like they're moving."
you are not really there but you do say
"that's because they are." 

stray elevator 

does not go to heaven
despite what the sign says.
only one man returned from his trip
& he says the clouds are made 
of tiny glass shards. he says,
"i walked through a stain glass window."
the elevator stands resolute 
on a sidewalk corner.
i tell my friends via text
"there's another one this week."
the elevators began after 
a week of downpours. creases 
of the sidewalk still mucky 
from silt & river grime. some believe
in omens but i believe only in
arrivals. what if what is forthcoming
is part of the advent? i think of 
snail trails & bread crumbs.
out my bedroom window
i can see the machine. tempted, 
i put on slippers to walk out to it.
how close am i to boarding
an unknown? others come too to stare.
a neighbor asks, "is anyone 
getting inside?" we all neither say
"yes" or "no." we want to keep
the option open. cool metal caress.
i want to be delivered 
to a messy nowhere. want to have to write
a new language to describe 
the world past my imagination.
instead, with great hesitation,
we all depart. i watch the machine
for hours until, finally, in the dead of night
while you are sleeping, someone slips inside.
no deliberation. no words.
decesive. up it goes until it's gone.
i feel relief & sorrow. no more temptation.
no more day-dusk-night dreaming.
secretly, i hope another 
is soon to follow. hope it comes
right into the bedroom. door wide open.
little white light inside.

how many stomachs do cows have?

i use the third & fourth stomaches
to store orphaned earrings
& stray shopping lists. i call them
"lost" & "found." sitting in the high chair,
someone is coming to feed me eels.
i've waited so long to tell you this.
haven't you ever gone out
into the pasture in search of
a burried heirloom? digging is difficult
with hooves. in my cow-soul i savor
every summer storm. i teach a young calf
how to read stars. maps leading back
to the hole in the mountain where
the first cow emerged fearful 
& without eyes. the second stomach 
is more of a corredor. a standing room.
there is only one chair 
& jazz plays softly all day
but not in a relaxing way. 
at this point, my whole body 
is a liminal space but that term is 
overused. what i really mean 
is my organs go no where & fear nothing.
the first stomach is just 
my grandmother's purse. still a pocket
with twenty-dollar bills in it
to be stolen by terrible girls
who want to buy black eyeliner.
two tomatoes rot on the counter.
i am the cow in the kitchen 
which is the opposite of 
a bull in a china shop. there are
stray bulls though if we end up needing one.
reproduction is over rated 
i would rather duplicate. here is
another adult in need of stockings.
there are more stomach of course
but if i told you about them
they'd lose their magic. 
what is the point of a secret
if you don't tell someone it exists.
with another stomach i once 
traveled back in time. saw men 
bored in the fields just laying 
on their backs. we have changed so little.
all the paintings hung in my stomaches
are askew. i hire a man to fix them.
he says, "this is going to cost you."
i don't have enough to fix it 
so decide it's just my aesthetic now.
tilt your head. the heirloom 
has been eaten by the earth.

emerald city

knowing you are not home
is a much clearer feeling 
than knowing you are.
i once stole a door knob & carried it
to emerald city. placed it on 
every possible passage, hoping
it might give way to a dining room.
dinner is being eaten wrecklessly somewhere.
a broken bowl is being pieced back together
but it's no where near the same.
no one was home. no one at all.
the city gleamed like a necklace.
every corredor shone & i called
my own name just to watch it skip golden
from alley to alley. no one moved.
it is possible though that everyone
was just hiding from me. cupping handfuls
of their favorite jewels. no one wants
to share their glitter anymore.
i know i don't. i left handprints
on the torsos of the great buildings.
followed the streets in their arabesques.
took a dead trolley all the way
to the castle where even sound
had a particular green. 
have you ever needed someone 
& watched them vanish?
this is what happened to me in the city.
i craved each precious corner.
souls in their washing machines.
shoe stores without ankles.
recycling the bottle 
we once kept the moon in. 
kings enough to fill centuries.
then, there i was. a girl 
so far from her gender that she could
hold colors under her tongue.
so many kinds of green. 
followed the smell of corn husks 
until i came home. nothing at all emerald.
people moving about as if 
there was always somewhere to end the day.
as if nothing at all 
was ever green for them.

boundaries machine

i want you to know i don't begin 
where you end. i begin 
in dwindling october daylight
when the plow drivers 
shut off their monsters.
there both our bodies 
are the eldest corn stalks.
our roots are a love language. 
i am always knitting a field 
where my chest used to be.
use gorilla glue to fix
paper wings you made me.
put them back in place.
fly as desperate as late season bees.
cut corners. crimp hallways
into rippled paths. 
raise my translucent fences
with signs that say "i want to be
entered." make yourself at home
& stay awhile. there are berries
wash & ready. 
i have the boundary machine running
in case i fall in love with you.
then, the device will
slip us both into glass boxes
& you know what they say
about people in glass boxes.
stealing a pair of your socks.
snipping off a lock of
you hair to feed my lantern.
what keeps you up at night?
i think in cyclones about
how sometimes i send a thought
like a paper airplane 
to your ear & it comes out
of your mouth. it's like
i am a river & you are a river
& here we are parceling out water.
when i see you i want to say
"please take my house."
i don't have a house. 
doors drop dead. you ring
a bell outside on the street.
my machine roars alive. 
puts my heart in a hope chest
with blankets & a wedding dress. 
come here anyway. let's break windows
& chairs tables & altars.

popcorn room

in my heat incarination 
i learned how to speak pure
& without any kernels. 
opening the door to the room
at the top of the highest staircase.
our house of catastrophies
& trophies. who is the greatest
grimace of them all. who can bare
the weight of earthworms
as they find their way
out of the spigot. instead,
here is the play dungeon.
exactly where nothing matters 
but depth. mice feed 
on the underbellies of clouds
but not here. this is 
the purity room for those for whom
purity was never an option.
pure like gems & never like bodies
because there's no such thing.
butter machine in the corner.
wading through the field of 
mindless flowers. do you remember
how you discovered your particular 
rupture? i was imagining 
a dandelion's ancient head
& a boy blowing all the seeds
free into the wind. he was 
a boy just like me. chest smiling 
with scars. not a single tuft left. 
it's about clearing space & what is removed
to open it. my heart's drain plug.
pull me out of the fire. pull me
out of the pile. no more shoes.
no more neckties, only
the crispness of popcorn under foot.
i was born in a paper bag
then carried to a scale to be weighed.
we all know the room is there
but to speak of it would be
to diminish its lure. describe for me
exactly how you like to season your air.
i inhale sugar twine.
as god to bind my hands 
behind my back & push the door closed
with his booted foot.