jesus meditation

you meet jesus in a parking lot.
he is pushing a shopping cart with 
a whirly wheel & asks you to get inside.
in sunday school, they did these things 
all the time. turned off the lights
& told us to meet him by a river
or in a lush garden. you're not
going to find jesus there. jesus eats
canned tomatoes. his shoes are worn through.
he tastes like pavement. converses mostly
with forlorn pigeons & collects lucky pennies.
he's no longer interested in greenery.
then, they would tell us to tell jesus 
what we were grateful for. i never
followed the instructions. 
i told jesus nothing at all. 
he would get up & leave my meditation 
& let me to scribble 
in my own void space. 
i populated my garden-forest with 
girls & boys i'd want to kiss. drank
from a honey river. jesus folded all his
old utopias into thirds to slip
into his back pocket. there's none left
even to meditate to. you can now
tell jesus what you don't believe in:
demons, eternity, money, teeth, & so on.
he will nod as he pushes you along.
the world will lay on its back.
together you will feed ducks
by the creek. he will tell you 
he has been struggling with doubt.
you will tell him you have been too.
now you can tell jesus what sins 
you hope to commit before you die
& he will nod, sometimes interjecting 
"me too, me too." the older i am
the less i want in a god. you can tell him
your dreams abundance if you feel ready.
tell him what the world lacks & feel
that distance like a looming melon.
you walk so long your soles wear down too.
all the world is told in foot fall. 
light late spring rain. a trash can 
full of paper fans. a dumpster smelling
like oil. the alley way of the alley way.
i used to try to pray but i could only
do it for other people. i made lists
of people i wanted jesus to keep safe 
but protection doesn't work like that.
jesus will tell you he often doesn't even know
how to protect himself. smokes a cigarette
& taps the ash off on the handle. 
you climb out of the shopping cart 
& before you go you ask jesus if he wants
to get inside. the meditations in sunday school
always ended with an instruction
to make promises to jesus--tell him
how you were going to do better. you should make
no promises to gods. instead you should
tell jesus what you wish for yourself.
he will go sit again on a wayward bench 
with the pigeons & say, "yes. yes. yes."
when you leave wave goodbye
from across the street. don't open your eyes.
don't picture the garden or the trees. 

sun & moon

the planets & stars & even the comets
& asteriods & black holes are all trans.
since i fell in love with you i see them 
bold as beach balls blaring through 
every ceiling. the stars gather
like gnats on the windowsill. i feed them berries
from the palm of my hand. 
you make nebulas hungry. you make 
the universe feast. 

i want to be the sun to your moon
by which i mean i want to see your 
ocean-pull & the glow of your face
& know we contain fragments of each other.

at your kitchen table
we talk about particles slipping
through walls like ghosts. you draw
a diagram. i picture particles confetti dancing
myself becoming a wave of light. 

every day i love you more
which is another way of saying i wake up 
& invent new planets to give to you. 
this one is green & expanding. this one
is just a halo. 

if i was the sun & you were
the moon i would still find a way to visit you.
would unspool physical until
there was nothing left but 
our own wanting. my forehead to yours.
a kiss planted on your neck.

you make the whole universe made knowable.
around every corner i find another 
orbit back to you. particles laugh
in their secrets. 

living room camping


anywhere can be a wilderness if you are in love
& it’s raining honeydew teeth. when i was small i would try
to build tents out of leaves & fallen branches at the creek by my house.
once, stole my dad’s bungie cords to drape sheets. they blew open
in the april wind. dismantled wings of a lazy bird.
i tried to sleep there all night accompanied by feral cat ghosts 
& trees trying to plan how much sun they would eat
in the yellow morning. in your living room,
the walls twist with root knots & ivy. christmas lights
bloom into dormant future comments. we practice
new ways to hold each other. first i am a shoe horn 
& then you are a palm full of pebbles & then i am 
the stream made of wood. the rain outside falls harder,
inventing a snow globe out of us. in your closet you have
more tents perched & unfeathered. in my dreams we are
hiking a trail made of sand. the sand spills over & over
but there is always more left. lessons in abundance i’ve learned
in your warmth: there is enough, there is enough, there is
enough. the tent above us remembers nothing 
of rainfall & closes its eyes. i too become a walnut or maybe
a spare button; necessary but resting. my leg over your hip.
your hip a private mountain where even evergreens
grow velvet bark. i’m re-learning what a forest can be.
you only need bodies & a window & maybe
the sweet honeyed coming-june grass. 
deer skulls shedding their antlers. mountain steep & shrugging. 
zip the tent’s mouth shut & we could be peach pits. pearls. pine nuts.
we could be angel sugar. pie crust. latticed.
i kiss your forehead. you smell like new flowers.
outside the birds discuss trunks & altitudes.
a bedsheet in breeze. leaves 
& leaves & leaves.  

superabundant

gallons of milk arrive like angels.
when i love i bring pounds of taffy
& a syrup jar to tap the maple tree.
i take my teeth out on the nightstand 
& wait for them to go jupiter beetle 
in moonlight. once, i drove two hours 
to see a boy for 30 minutes. we sat
on his sofa & i watched him play 
video games. outside, it looked like 
vanilla rain. did not rain. slept humid
alone that night like a wrapped gumball.
hungry, we split the last bagel. i sat
in my car outside for another hour
to make the proximity last longer.
all down his street buses full of brooms
came & went & came & went. i'm scared
of being trans sometimes because i know
my desires are hazardous. i think to myself
should i wear that dress then 
would that make someone want to shoot me?
i have to admit it is exciting being 
tragic. when i love i carry pockets full
of plastic coins. i'm ready to invent
a currency. something achievable.
falls from the sky. emerges from bushes.
i want my lovers to sleep in. i want
a cocoon to hold all my many-hearted worry.
what can i do but walk & wait for the grass
to grin back at me? i like the masks because
they keep my laugh lines from making 
'x's on the walls. overipe citrus &
overipe bananas & overipe toffee & over-
ripe balloons. if i don't use them soon.
if if if. ifs step inside with their
shoes on. when i let myself love
i use boxes. boxes are crucial to 
mantaining a sembalence of self.
here is where my eyes go when i sleep. here
is the step ladder i'll need 
to get down. keep me in your prayers & thoughts.
yes, i'm alright. just too much to keep track of.
i might be driving already for all i know.
on a plane to teal moon. knitting
a canteloupe cozie for when you get home. 
i never saw the boy again. still think
of that apartment though. hours between
& hours between. to be queer is 
to do anything to feel closer. 

honesty box

in the wicker confessional i lit a match
& the priest said, "no not here."
i am prone to drastic. not used to 
a calm farewell to the truth.
once, i wrote suicide notes 
on toilet paper & flushed them. another time 
i scribbled a dead boy's phone number
on the back of my hand for days
until i worked up the courage
to call & leave a voicemail. there's nothing
heroic about the real real thing you mean to say.
soften the blow with fireworks or
tell god you are ready to fall in love again.
dear god, i am not interested in sin.
i want pleasure without the glint or
the barcode. in hell there is a very long 
grocery store line & everyone is trying
to buy ice cream. we watch as it melts 
onto the floor. some lick it up.
i'm not that scared of going to the worst place.
it can't be worse than admitting
how easy it was for me to fog machine
my way into a gender. who was the imprint 
on the window? who walked her knees
down to the creek to practice meditation?
i'm sick with a captial "c." often i think
what about a do-over? then i think 
no no no that would be somehow worse.
i don't hurt the priest. he's not even
really there. he's just a vestment 
hanging on the back of a closet door.
the secret is i don't ever want to fully
recover from catholocism. what if
i need an excorsism? what if i decide
on gold? chalice? blood? it's best to keep
all avenues open. girl in the sacristy
lighting a match & snuffing it out
on her forehead. using bangs to cover
the singe. a mark is a sign you've been
trying too hard to be alive. have you noticed
clear-skin people are partically see-through?
that's because they've got one foot
out the door. there's no more door for me
so i shouldn't talk. i'm firmly in place.
or, at least, firmly enough. 

the bumblebee god

he came to pass each tuesday night last year
in a daze of thrum & tremble. 
offerings balanced in every corner:
nectarines & spare socks & silverware. 
he was my father, i was certain of it.
those coarse gloves. his hovering stagnant 
above the dirt. this was something 
only a father could achieve. proximity 
to intimacy spattered & blurred. 
watched his mandibles working. chewing
sweet sweat from mail man faces. tired from
his all-day yielding honey. worship should be
reserved for rib cages. they're strewn 
in the forever field like discarded jeeps.
rust in the jaw bone from sitting out
in the storm. my father used to 
take a spoon from the cupboard & 
press it to my forehead, telling me
to open. fed me like a baby cicada.
not yet ripe enough for screaming.
we all want to believe are fathers are god.
or, maybe, we're terrified because 
we already know they are. in the old testament,
the bumblebee god squashed the workers 
with his thumb, telling them each 
it was their own fault for not working
hard enough. i know i do not work hard enough.
tuesdays swim past like elephants. 
my father, a sky ship. a drone now.
dropping flowers in the eaves. not taking
my offerings. who feed you now?
whose fruit do you dismantle?
honeycomb crash like dinner plates.
we could have been glass-winged 
& eternal, couldn't we have? the lie is
that thrones are passed down. a god
is a god is a god. a daughter is
a dumbwaiter into the sugar bowl.
she's waiting still for the spoon. 

goat eye garden 

spilled the jar of handle bars 
in the garage & closed the doors.
nothing lush is lucrative. if you look
at the side of a mountain long enough 
you can relearn a new productivity.
a garden isn't just to feed us,
it's to witness devouring. the bees
with their mouths full of gigabites
& the hardrive whirling with hoof &
precipitation. then, of course,
the goat eye weeds that blink with 
a portal knowledge none of us are ready for yet.
trows in hand, we planted baby teeth
& marbles. steam powered moon.
dripping ivy. a tomato born from envy.
weeding with the whippets & their
funny little wire bodies. re-charging
the potatoes using the sun. solar energy is so 1600s.
give me a kerosene flower & i'll put it
right in my hair. i'm not affraid of fire.
growth can mean anything in the wrong hands.
a fire once grew from my temples to my forehead.
ash fell on the lawn. there's an epidemic 
of lawns in this town. one after the other.
the wild plants often come to my garden
for refuge. gossip about ordinary & 
drink thimbles of red. challices 
of fresh warm dirt. we stumble hand in hand
down to the horn meadow to pick
our night's skulls. nothing can be done
about the other wheres but here
i can call you through the button hole.
hold like soft tethering. wait for
evening blinking through the brush.
sift in the reeds for yarn. 

grand prize entry

holding egg plants like children, we waited. 
we had taken our thumb nails & performed numerology
hoping to find unlockable. used shoes
as fire wood to keep the computer listening.
ground water gone purple from bruise-years. 
hope is not a thing with feathers, it is 
something siphoned & dangerous. a rainbow
is always akin to the gasoline cript 
where the great fires wait to be born. we wanted
to want. the almost believed. held tickets 
between our knees. slipped passwords 
under stones. the grand prize was so so mammoth.
we were nothing but sprinkles in its wake. 
our hearts burst like stepped grapes
from asking too much. the things with actual feathers
were doing the dirty work. they flew 
as if to say "yes someone will win."
but never landed. spent the rest of their lives
above ground while we made do and made do.
farmers growing feathers for luck
then eating feather salads at the old wooden table
with the wobbly leg. glass blowers shaping feathers 
& breaking them in the yard afterwards. sliver
of victory, why could this not be something
shareable. split between all the arteries
& left to flow as fish. hovering instead
in the face of the big name machine
who is taking her time to decide a precise
definition of "deserving" before she decides
the who. all that incandense for one person.
how heavy that is going to be. philanthropists
chatter from their vantage in the depths
of the forest where no one can see their wealthy.
i select not to look. the count down will come soon
& i want to sleep knowing less 
than the rest of the universe. 

not to mention

the difference between gargoyles & grotesques
has only to do with how they handle
release. last night you told me
you think often about the weight of clouds.
we ran to the highest point in the world
to watch light make golden barnacles
of the heavens. there's a big boat
parked over our heads & it doesn't have
the energy to leave harbor. i empathize.
i want nothing but floating. i love 
an uncalled for rain. christmas lights 
on the train station eaves. trying to take pictures
of a castle church. the gargoyles all over
thinking about their futures & hoping
to be trees in a next incarnation. 
there's enough air but just enough. sometimes geese
follow me home & ask if i have any letterhead.
deer are dissapointed that i couldn't handle
winter. turned into an ice egg & 
slept nestled in my own tall tales.
i lie to myself so often the lies take up space.
closets full. like almost-deceased shoes.
like thumb tacs in a bowl. picture frames
are the difference between twenty-four 
& twenty-five years old. i want to get married
tomorrow. it would be so easy. my heart 
is already resting inside the neccesary 
black velvet box. if you're reading
this poem know that it's more about you
than you might think. not mention that
when i love someone i don't just love them
i want be their water. something to submerge in
or drift on the surface. maybe the boat is
nothing but a dream. row row row your boat
is a philosphy really. i'm not dreaming though.
ghosts show up on heat sensors. evidence 
is evidence. the aliens saw us kissing
& made a single note "gay ???" 
yes. gay. on the train ride 
there were specific instructions to not
stick your hands out the windows 
& i did it anyway. a waterfall is not always
a waterfall. can just be a slow pour.
how can i tell you about the canopic
i'm planting in your yard? they're celebratory 
don't worry. all my organs are free-stone fruit.
i couldn't ask for anything better 
& so i ask for fiberglass or orchestra
or a scrap book made of actual scraps.
strands of hair & pony tail holders
& flecks of pollen. i would be the grotesque though.
not the gargoyle. when ran comes it doesn't spill
through me. it washes. drenches. i said 
"what if the clouds came down all at once?"
& i meant "that's how i felt when 
you opened my front door & the cool March air
spilled around you." 

mortar & mortar 

with you i became intact. original.
stepped into an ocean's feathers. 
i am one second from un-collision.
the perfect dust. your every breath like birds
as we made the space craft from cardboard 
& tin cans. camped out in the thinnest closet.
antler from the dumpster. i needed you
the way grind needs rosemary & the way 
a cemetery without visitors goes static. 
cast iron pan on the porch. the neighbors' midnight 
orchestra. a bicycle burned into 
the hallway light. tell me more about 
your concrete. tell me where you want
to be pressed this time. my face can be
your only gramophone. let's sing louder
& unravel words into colors. you make me dream
of vacant weddings where our love becomes
an object. glossy vase. chandelier.
i carry you easy as a basket of dandelions.
you kiss me like stones tell each other secrets.
i want nothing more than to sleep 
inside your story. dog-eared under blankets.
pestles barking in the yard. we're 
too content. too full of bay windows.
i'll climb the tree. you turn over the earth.
a spot for the moon to nestle deep
while i tell you again how much i love you.