heat sensor

a love poem has been detected on the paremeter.
orange like the old planets & ambling on
its six legs. i used to put my hand to your forehead
& say, "you're burning up." you were like touching
a stove top what with all your atmosphere gazing 
& your need to wear sweaters even in the heart of summer.
a good friend is someone who always wants 
to be more. imagines the two of you
flying helicopter into sunset. hungry, 
a love poem will take whatever it can get--
rain boots & ice cream cones & even sometimes 
front doors. what is a memory but a love poem
waiting to happen? latent heat. i tried so so hard
not to think too much about you. filled a tub
with ice & laid down. felt all my goose-flesh.
tried to remember how old we are now & were then.
the love poem decapitates the mailbox.
snarls. roots in the garage for bicycles.
demands a conclusion. pearl necklace. melon rind.
i keep the front door locked. dead bolt. chain.
windows shut. love poem on the porch weeping 
with a shadow of your voice. saying, 
"don't you want this?" i don't fall for its trap
but i let myself picture you with your long straight hair
& you sandaled feet. arms hugging yourself tight.
i would let you take me anywhere in the world.
sunburn me in the river of rocks. become coals
dazzling in the red we bring out only for each other.
to get the love poem to leave, i make promises 
i can't keep. i say, "come back tomorrow 
& i'll be ready." i say, "i can't escape tonight." 
the love poem, distraught, will follow
my thumb's worth of hope. tumble back into the brush
& return when it remembers again what it was like
to kiss in the november night's cold. two girls.
only the heat of our bodies & the promise 
of another sun to turn the world tangerine. 

sleep potions for feathered boys

the angels were playing crochet 
in the front lawn all night. 
everytime i'd close my eyes i'd hear
another wack or their tinsel laughter. 
stood on my bed & prayed it would become 
a life boat. orange with danger. instead
it became the shoulders of a ragged beast.
i told my imagination "no not now"
but the machine wouldn't stop.
greased motor. my heart is not solar-paneled. 
instead, it waits for the moon. craves 
persistent dark like towns where
at certain times of the year there is
no sun at all. blue-wild tumbling dark.
the sun self left to wander as if it were
a shadow. sometimes my hallucinations give me
new names. they'll say, "today you are
nothing but a birch tree" or 
"i'm going to call you daffodil."
i find a blossom under my tongue.
night grows an extra toe. i begin
to barter with the darkness. offering 
a piece of amethyst & a stray sock
in exchange for sleep. not just any sleep.
i want a sleep that turns me into a raven
or at least an angel. i yearn to be
less useful. sleep so thick it flatens
the old mountains & leaves only 
ancient roots. my eyes are paperweights.
door stops. i keep myself open,
for what i cannot be sure. the heart knows
what nothing else can. says, "awake awake awake."
neon letters whining just beneath skin.
i am making a potion though. a potion so strong
feathers will burst all across my body. 
down & flight feathers. ready for the longest
necklace of planets. for a sleep 
so thick it coats the world in glass. 

carrying

on trips like this i don't check the cargo.
follow other trucker's headlights like hard candy.
feel the road under my tongue. push onward.
statelines like jump rope. when i was a baby 
my mom carried me like this. we slept 
in park pavillions & grandmother's garage
& then in the backseat of the station wagon
with night rapping on windows. i loved it. 
craved the smell of gas station hot dogs
& stream of air from from the highway's urgency.
sometimes i dream the back is full of something truely valuable.
maybe secret museum artifacts only i have been trusted with.
of course, i know what it is. i keep a sheet on a clipboard 
in the front seat that details every mundane bundle.
when i arrive, i will checkto ensure all arrived safely.
i can count on one hand the number of times
i've kissed someone. the last, a skinny guy in nebraska,
asked if i was delivering dinosaur bones
to a museum. we opened up the back together.
i imagined seeing a full t-rex skeleton. 
something--anything to marvel at. then, i imagined
showing my mother. her willow-like frame. me, standing 
only up to her hip again. all of us staring 
at some great prehistoric creature. i should
try to go to a museum when i stop to rest one of these days.
i know i probably won't. this is the kind of thing 
i'll say but never do. there was no dinosaur, just rows
of boxes. the man joked, "they got the bones
packed up is all." when he left he gave me his number
& i lost it on purpose. in my head, i call him 
"dinosaur bones." if mom were still around
i might call her & find a way to tell that story.
slide between the knees of a mountain. machine around me.
maybe it's me. maybe i am the dinosaur. metal &
monsterous. six-teen wheels. darkness spills
across the horizon. i am driving. 

manic poem

the kitchen is a noise. all the forks whirlpool.
spoons kissing wildly. frantically,
i try to hold them all still. 
tornado watch for this area. a storm drill
where we all line up in the hallways. never sit
near windows. they might becomes shark mouths.
i found a dead great white in the creek. 
herons ate away at his face. i asked my father
how a beast so large could have swam our tiny creek
& he explained, "fear can drive an animal
past physical boundaries." our goldfish once flew
like a sparrow. i punch a hole through the wall 
with my phantom hand. do other creatures
feel ashamed for their needs. a gnats buzzing
& thinking, "dear god why do i need so many comforts."
taking each cherrio out one by one to peer through
their peepholes. nothing new nothing new but
the next one could be exactly what i'm looking for.
air conditioning in the morgue. a potted violet
growing roots thick as carrots. i'm ordering 
a back up set of teeth in case mine run out.
i don't know if i should be excited or afraid
of the way my neighbor stares at me. behind his door
i picture a stack of ceramic plates
stacked too high for comfort. anything at all
could knock them down. i try to breath less
to keep them intact. i alone hold the secrets 
to how the world can stay in one piece 
from second to second. it's as easy as
chewing three times before swallowing a doorknob.
i used to stay out past midnight. i used to sleep in
till ten am. put a lid on the sun. now, i say,
"don't worry i am coming." at the first sign of light.
soon it will be winter & i will lay out my tricks
for staving off blizzards. the shark bones 
once floating in the river now in my utensil drawer.
eating with a rib. taste of salt water &
motor boats. i'm out at sea by which i mean
i am trying to navigate while the cardinal directions
vibrate & pull out their pocket knives. 

Tracing Your Mouth with Purple Lipstick  

Holding my hand steady,
I ask each wheel of your face 
Where we want to arrive. Smooth
Foundation around your eyes.
Mouth circled wider & wider. 
Purple as a carrot. Your porcelain bone.
I tell you I love doing other people’s
Makeup because I get to marvel at how 
Individual our features are. On my own
Face, my eyes whirl off into their own 
Biomes—- sprout roots. Become each 
A different animal. My dark eyebrows.
Now, the light hairs of your lashes.
Smooth chin where a crabapple tree
Once grew wild & sweet. What a pleasure
To be a visitor in my lover’s face. 
Running the doe foot across your lips,
I want to ask you to kiss me. Leave 
Footprints where I once had freckles.
Climb my nose like a cliff side. 
Watch the trees starting to turn
Septemberly gold. There are caves 
Deep as the worlds chest
Without as much to gather from
as your face. I leave each glance with
amethyst in my lungs. 
Run my thumb across your 
Soft skin as I tell you I’m finished.
We look in the mirror together. 
Our faces are round planets meeting
Where the universe puts on only dresses.  

Slippers

I want to put on the right atmospheric
Pressure. Several holes in the ceiling 
Were left there by the last tenants.
I stare right through to a space ship.
Glowing crown of abduction & then nothing
But cellophane night. How do you open 
Your sleep? I keep a jar of straws ready.
Another hurricane with my name approaches 
My oldest shoes & turns them over like
Life rafts. I suck the pink from flowers 
To use for a future gender. Spend all day
In my slippers without noticing. A long 
Sunlight-sleepover with my own specters.
Scraping extra statues from the walls
& listing them on eBay. I need a few 
Hundred dollars if I’m going to buy
A bicycle. These times call for 
Man power. Legs peddling. Tightropes
Multiply & I get so thin I don’t need 
To pay them any mind. I was radical 
But I’m an inexpensive way. Nothing is
Really biodegradable except for flesh &
Sometimes hope. Leaf flesh & orange pith & dead bird. Plastic afternoon. Plastic 
Slippers to wear out to the graveyard 
Where no one is buried yet. 
Some would call this just a field. 

jars of moonlight for depature

i used to wait for rapture,
face open like a can of green beans,
palms wide to flocks of orange.
i stand by for the flood. buy rain boots
made of seaweed & tea cups. talk to the sewer
& say, "tell me where you carry 
your leaves." my friend washes mason jars
free of their sticky blackberry jam guts 
& i steal them in preparation. if no one else
is going to savor each moon, than it will be
up to me. as the oven heats we talk about
how almost everyone thinks to themselves
"i am the only one who can." i promise you
i am not the only one who can do this.
dipping the mouth of a jar into
the moon's bright forehead. telling the moon,
"this will only hurt ofr a second." did you know
rocks feel pain? not just blunt force
but emotional too. sometimes sandstone
will twinkle with the memories of ground
& grit. jewels weep recalling the great pressure
that bore them. we all know that feeling--
forced into crystal & a mouth bleeding sugar.
i keep the moon light all for myself
but, one day, when we need it,
i'll approach strangers & say, "i know a place
where you can drink the moon again."
they will follow me. i will be 
the only one. the only one in the world
with so much moonlight. i'll give them
the whole jar & say, "tell no one."
there are many form of greed. i'm giving you mine
because i am aware the sky is moving out.
boxes on the curb of the universe.
she is spitting blue out one comet at a time.
i too want to rid myself of everything
for which i've come to be known just to see
what would be left. i lied though,
i do spend some of the light on myself.
sit cross-legged on the hardwood floor.
spoon in hand. take one mouthful.
fill with ancient talking. maybe i am 
anticipating more than i'm ready to admit.
if you take me up, i want to go piecemeal.
bone by bone until one day there is
only the grin of a rib & then gone. 

spaceship in a bottle

tweezer me towards the moon.
i take a length of twine & use it 
to dangle my own stars. fixing them
from bits of teeth-light. the bottle 
was a shipwreck. frosted from 
salt-breathed water. a mermaid once 
cradled the object like a child then,
left it go in favor of a shell.
my desires for space are not neon 
or even canvas. they are handfuls.
melon water & pinched raspberries.
a thumb in a box of chocolates.
i have never needed air before.
in the depth of space i might even 
see a comet call me "brother." i have
so much rock & rupture ready in me.
when i was a girl i would climb up
on my roof & challenge celestial bodies
to boxing matches. take bruises 
all across my skin. every burst vessel
a brief nebula. in the bottle i place
the cockpit & then build the ship around.
red sides. glass window. fuel enough to light 
the whole year on fire. set the craft 
on my bedstand & instruct it not
to leave without me. i'm waiting 
for myself to go miniature. 
it's only a matter of days now. i can 
already feel my lungs shrinking to the size
of grape. i have lived sweety on this surface.
soon i will go. bottle & all
into the darkest evergreens & homemade stars. 

earbud 

in march we looked for tadpoles.
found them wriggling like commas in the muck.
each a little inhale. i want a pause
not a body. green algae. a plastic bucket.
my father & i with the satellites on our backs.
carried them back home away from the pond.
outside our house we picked out our favorites 
& slipped them into our ears to hear them
tell us stories of their past lives.
one sang like a trumpet. another called
long & lonely egret notes. i laid on my back
as the tadpoles worked, sewing a seam 
between our bodies & theirs. earbuds pulling us
into & through old lives. one tadpole,
a shoe maker, asked me if i knew his daughter.
i lied & said we went to school together.
this helped him rest. i am still unsure 
if a lie can sometimes be useful if it helps
another creature rest. i hope the tadpole
never finds out the truth. 
they are all frogs now though.
by the time they are frogs the tadpoles 
forget all the oldness. speaks only of 
fear & hunger & out of the blue
occasionally, they will return to sit on our porch.
short shadows in the lamp light 
on a humid evening in july. i go sit with them.
i tell them. "we spoke when you were tadpoles."
they blink, unknowing. i used to think 
getting older was a deepening. a process
of wading further & further into a pond.
with the frogs here i know i am getting farther
from my oldest mouth. finally, the frogs depart.
back towards a verdant sleep. then, me too,
with my ears empty, crawling into 
a soft cluster of my own making. 

celestial noise

i asked you, "can you hear that?"
we were sitting on the highest branches
of the old playground oak tree 
taking spoonfuls of night. i fed you
& darkness dripped from the corner of your mouth
down your neck. all the stars were old tamborines
& we had no where at all to go. the sound
was like a stampede of aluminum foil
or the opening of the oldest jaw. 
then, almost like placing a fresh ear
to the lips of a conch shell. 
we were no longer lovers but friends
who could recount the stories of each other's skin.
you with the constellation freckles. me with
the scar from a thorn in my side.
the last firefly of the year held on
speaking her light in the hopes of getting a response.
all the cars on the road drove towards
supermarkets or gas stations. we closed our eyes
to hear the sound more clearly. "yes, i hear it,"
you said with eyes closed. the language 
of the stars & the planets vibrated our bones.
i remembered the first time we kissed
like toads in the damp woods. two boys 
with our ankles made of brush. his messy
brown hair. finger in a belt loop.
sitting on a rotting log. squishing black beetles
that ran scared from us. i believed 
we were giant. then, here, taking a handful of sound
& pocketing it. texture of sand. already seeping out.
i didn't want it to be over. i wanted to ask
can we stay this old? can we keep the sound
underneath out tongues? our shoulders touched.
the universe swelled like the truth of balloons.
hummed & hummed. turned our teeth purple
with her singing. shed a star or two 
which fell as piles of light. cast long shadows
of our forms. two boys in the dark.