poison apple

i saw my face in the skin.
we were just girls in the attic
where all mirrors grew wide & fibbing.
i told you i was hungry 
by which i meant 
i wanted to be the kind of girl
you were. with your scepter  
& your bowl of dice. instead
i had grown wild & motherless as ivy. 
woke up to see my own limbs 
over-taking the walls.
being a princess is not about body
or mind--it's about fear.   
the repeated question what will
i carry? when carry means
what fruit will take me to sleep.
if i'm telling the truth i crave this.
a slumber beside death. 
as a girl i used to assemble a boyhood
from moss & dead moths.
was it a shrine or a grave? 
maybe both. teeth through red skin.
i'm eating my own face. replaced
with glowing white. if bitten into 
what color would your heart be
my love? i always picture grey 
or old maroon. while underwater 
i hope you tell stories about
my barefeet. i hope you find 
the boy memorial pray at it until 
i come back completely transformed.
no more glass in me at all.
a man made of moss & briars. 

walk-in closet

my gender uses too many coat hangers
both to drape & to dagger. i once removed
a string of pearls from my throat.
self-surgeries by desk lamp. 
who knew some people have
so much room. then again, you can
walk into just about any closet 
with enough determination.
who of us hasn't felt the green back wall
hoping to find destiny?
into a small closet. smell of moth wings
& shoulders. asking myself
what would it take to wander a step forward?
truly, i want to be the thoroughly
un-nested animal. i want crypts
to petal off me. water off
my back. instead i crave these 
ripe unknowing sphere. crawling into 
a personal anonymity. a collection 
of glass door knobs. laying out a blanket 
beneath the fleat of sweaters. 
no stars can exist in closets
but sometimes i swipe one. open it 
like a flip phone & watch 
as i gain a shadow for a flicker or two.
some people have so much they build homes
for their shoes. they invent 
a castle just to museum their joyful.
i am terrified of all closed closet doors
but even more afraid of them open. 
toothless in the dark. i step inside.
feel the damp warm walls. 
a mouth or a meadow or a minced word.
here my gender cacoons. becomes 
bioluminescent & delicate. 
belongs to only me. 

gas light

how often do you believe 
in perfection? we built 
each others bedrooms & swallowed
the spare screws. you used to write
my thoughts on a stickie note
& fold them before feeding each to me
softly as you would apple to horse.
there is no gasoline in the car.
it drives itself with a belly
of ghosts. sitting in your parked jeep.
rain trailing down the windshield.
you told me it was not raining
& so the precipitation entered through
a pin-sized hole in the back 
of my head. i drowned several times
in your bone broth. if you call me
husband, will i suddenly become 
what you wanted? we all have a wife
inside us who tells us to believe
whatever the teeth promise. 
is it optimism or fear? or is optimism 
just a kind of fear? i had 
a perfect diagram of what i needed to be.
you caught it like a pigeon & tore off
wings one at a time. i saw you once
stand on the building's roof & jump.
you flew & when you returned i asked 
"where did you go?" you laughed.
you kissed me like water kisses fire.
said, "i was here. i have always 
been here." 

hide & go see

from this vantage point 
i notice your collection of glass eyes.
learn to lodge myself
behind clock faces & in the blades
of ceiling fans. watch as
arms & wings move in front of me
making an animation of your life.
the distance between "your life"
& "our life" is a slingshot letter.
i pick up the twig & snap it in half.
look now we're whole. one wonderful seeking. 
who was the last person you made
a drawer for? the last 
between-the-ribs shrine
with a lit tea candle? i cover my face
& tell you to try & see me.
i'm at the bottom of one of my mother's
old purses. i am writing about
being struck with a broom handle
as a boy. it is amazing how collision 
is all it takes to become a monster.
& by monster i mean 
a boy. & by a boy i mean 
something hidden even from 
myself. i bought binoculars
& a microscope. when i say "ready or not"
we are always the "or not."
how does one prepare themselves
to be a subject? a submission?
i stood in the middle of the hallway
& let the glass eyes spill
from underneath your bedroom door.
you said, "here i come." 

accelerated lawn

i wanted a rapid nuclear melody.
took handfuls of fertilizer out 
to the green. under the dirt 
worms were knitting themselves 
into a great war blanket. 
the grass's teeth shown shiny 
& white. i compost another dream.
watch mushrooms grow in frills.
a pod of dophins leave the ocean 
with freshly evolutioned legs
& i wonder what i'd have to do
to go in the other direction.
take paring knife to make gills.
mutilation is a process of becoming
closer to the self. or unless 
i am not someone you should ask about
a "self." once i saw my heart 
on a towel at a yard sale.
a yellow sticker read "25 cents."
i did not buy it. now it belongs
to an old man who pushes a shopping cart
of trinkets in & out of his mouth.
we buy a sprinkler & can't work up the courage
to dance in its fire. seams of 
water landing all across the lawn.
there is no mower. there has never been
a mower. a blade exists beneath me 
always whirling. i live a wrong-step
kind of life. i spend all day counting
the blades. these are each mine. 
i imagine a lover counting the hair
on my head. i often mistake 
attention to detail 
for love. or maybe it really is
what it means to care for someone. 
to memorize them to the point at which
you could make a replica if need be.
i lay down in the grass & it swells
taller & taller around me until
the sun is hairy & feminine. 
enveloped, i dream 
of leap-frogging binaries. hands 
on the shoulders of a lawn
as it becomes drift-worthy cosmos. 

orchard

in the stairwell, the apples trees
took their vows. snaked up banister
& rooted on every stair. all august 
they'd bloomed trailing their petals
throughout our apartment building. 
i'd come alone to tell them about you
saying, "i'm in love" over & over.
with them it didn't feel like obsession.
the trees wanted to hear everything.
as i spoke the apples swelled
to the size of my hands. 
one apple, ripe & blushing, fell 
into my lap each time i joined them.
as a boy, when i used to work at the orchards
the trees were much more reserved. 
stood in their rows & bore fruit like helmets. 
here, the trees laughed & flourished. 
sometimes it is a delight to be 
where you do not belong. invited 
song birds to sit & sew table clothes.
when i love someone everything becomes
fruit. plums in the hall closet.
strawberries in the cutlery drawer.
i filled baskets with the apples 
& delivered them to neighbors.
made sauce & butter. my bones 
smelled sweet & red. then, i'd crawl
into bed next to you. smell the soft branches
of your hair. you'd ask me 
what i'd been up to & i would always lie.
these were my private orchards & fields.
there is something strangely personal
about love. i always saved the seeds. 
brass key to my apartment. 
more apples than i could ever eat. 

fresh paint

i'm as impatient as webbed frog hands.
i don't take my shoes off inside
in case there's a need for running away.
keep the windows unlocked. talk wildly 
to strangers. open their palms & write
my telephone number & say, "in case
you ever need anything." call me your 
pocket knife. i'm ready to peel an apple
or a heart. i'm as impatent as a fortune
& in patient too. wearing a hospital gown
all the to church. pew is both a place
to become a treasure & the sound a gun makes.
i could lie & say i didn't read the sign
but i wanted to touch. each morning 
a man comes from my past to paint 
my wall. sometimes, if i'm good, 
he'll let my choose the color. 
sometimes, if i'm good, the wall will 
refuse to dry & i can press my whole hand
into the color. i collect my own hands
like state quarters. what would you do
if you could see all the ribbons 
from your hands strung out around the room?
i try to untangle them. it's really no use.
better to accept paint & knots.
do you remember when i showed you 
my closet full of clocks? well,
truthfully, only some of those were clocks.
most were just waitings. how long until
the next coaxt. i'm as impatient
as an ambulance bird. i'm as impatient as
an ice sculpture self portrait. 

in the hopes i'll never be valid 

or reasonable or affirmed 
in just the right way. i look to lemmings
for inspiration. how a jump can be 
natural & neccesary. i am often wrong
about my own needs. i crave ledges
& too-soons. online i order boxes 
of cereal to stack & make a house.
i live sustainibly or in other words
i consume less & less each day. call me
a great decresendo. the way a snail loses 
her body as she asks questions.
out of the three pigs, i am the pig
with the house made of bricks only
the bricks are really styrafoam 
& the house isn't a house but a lean-to
with a static television inside.
i don't need whatever it is that could come
from recognition. my gender is 
too purple for a name. i make it a point
to cut every mouth i see into cubes 
like melon. most of all though 
i am not viable. the life that lives me
is a dust ferris wheel. has no heart
of its own. i'm not a parasite but worse.
i'm porifera. water for blood.
used to wash away others dead skin.
but this is how i want it. not a plausible bone
in my body. not a sliver of credible gender.
here is where the instinct comes in.
where other animals tell me 
how to paint my skin turtle-shell.
& the truth is i never needed 
the field researchers. i have seven species 
just in my hands. i was never
trying to be convincing. 

prayer to god for a more dangerous gender

may i wear burning bush dresses.
watch my hair catch. singe past bone.
turn diamond from the heat. hoard pearls
beneath my tongue. a dress is always a portal.
when i was a boy-girl, my sex lived inside
a taser. may my sex dwell only in ocean trenches
where, pryed open by tectonic plates, i sigh volcanic.
may i cut off all my hair
& it grow back indigo. may all my lovers
know my name without me having to speak it.
a name is a kind of dress. may i be, 
as often as possible, a boy in a dress.
at the dawn of gender there was only green.
drying my old hearts in the sun like prunes.
please, i do not want to be valid or true.
i only want icicles dangling from my every move.
thighs made of swimming pools. a biology 
without & tunnels. may women see me & think
"i no longer crave sisterhood." men graze
in the meadows of my shoes. a full-length mirror
to drink from. neighbors pouring salt circles
around their homes. i want an infectious gender.
for everyone on my block to wake up
& crave lavender. mouthfuls of purple.
closing our eyes for a whole day. may i 
only sing siren-voiced. may my songs 
lead ships on dry land. streets flood 
with pleasure. every mailbox is
a sex organ. opening the lid. slipping 
my hand inside. envelops of "yes, more."
may my hands always both ignite 
& cool. may i be as wet as morning grass.
may my gender arrive & depart
like a moth to a light. head blaring 
to meet the false sun. 

 

doll house w/ mice

pretending to be human?
i wonder aloud as we watch mice
make their way to doll house.
they carry pocket watches & stolen sugar.
stand on plastic beds & peer out
windows. the doll house is a bisection.
a dream clock & a soiled planet.
door bell rings again. knock knock.
is it our house or the doll house?
the doll house. one is the mother 
& one is the father & the others decide
to be children. imagine picking 
your family title out of thin air?
they put on clothes. we undress.
mice making plastic dinner. us opening
a can of ravioli. two spoons. 
mice washing their hands & faces.
you combing my hair. knots like
new knuckles. i don't want to miss
a moment of this house. ask the mice
if they want to be big balloons like us.
the top of my head skirting ceiling.
mice playing tiny pianos & inventing manners.
dictionaries in their hears.
dining room table. our mother sleeping
like a den of pillows. the mice mother
laying in the bathtub considering 
graveyards & burials. wooden spoons
for all of us. come on now,
i plead. wouldn't you like 
to eat gold from tupperware?
babies turn to shoes. you leave 
for midnight soccer practice
or basketball court dancing.
i close the doll house. stop watching.
open a window & consider tossing
the doll house out. watch it grow wings.
watch it fly south for the winter.
i don't. instead, i toss out
a dinner plate. hear it shatter 
on the driveway. my father returns
& leaves in the same breath.
the mice discuss the world "generation."
i listen & take notes.