innocence machine project

in the bell jar, we mimicked the atmosphere 
of mercury then filled inside with white flowers.
watched them incinerate & dust. wept over their 
swift destruction. surviving & the desire to survive
are separate phenomenon. this is all we've discovered.
then again, i don't think we've discovered anything
it's just been told to us. 
once, when i was still awake,
i literally stood on a lily pad & listened
to the herons gossip about fish flavors. 
i was so light that on windy days my father would
wrap a rope around my waste when i played in the yard
to ensure i wouldn't be taken away. 
i wish i'd been
taken away.
i could have grown up to be a cloud. i could have
been a glass candy maker. instead, 
i turned to science.
filled beakers with blood & listened for bells.
talked to ghosts with a stethoscope to the wall.
they said, "no no no. no more."
now, here i am, trying to return. 
we were hired not for our skill but for
our longing. asked to look through a pair of goggles 
all of us saw bowls of strawberries just out of reach 
but ready to eat.
the experiments are to no avail. another dissects 
lightbulb filaments & searches for
a certain glow. i lay on my back
& the ceiling snows sugar. think "i could have
i could have" over & over until it becomes
"cut in half cut in half." yesterday, 
we thought we uncovered it. we thought we were
innocent as ducklings. we laughed in a circle
as if there were a may pole. but, then,
a flicker. the shift of a star. a planet
coveting another's face. then it was gone. i want
a bell jar big enough to fit me under.
somewhere the world is at least a surface away.
there are not enough permissioned barriers
& far too many containers. i put my socks 
in a ziplock bag before i leave. what we're doing
is topic secret. potentially contagious. 
i tell my lover's i am a toy maker. 
when they ask "what kind?" 
i never know what to lie. 

delivery

the stork brings me basinettes of jars.
swaddled melons & a bowl of pins. useful enough items.
so, i usher them inside & used them to fill 
the baby room. it's a place only i can open.
a door the size of my hand. turns wide
like a card. inside is nothing but pastle.
i close my eyes & dream of fingers. dream of 
laminated gender roles where i am a mother
of all kinds of softness. i consider the stork
& his hollow bones. how heavy a baby would be
to lug from the other side of the clouds to here.
wings beating again wind. the baby, asleep
like a thumb. sometimes i order food & 
it's delivered by a boy on a bike. i give him
a tip & he turns into a frog. all princes 
are not worth having so i take to kissing stones
in the hopes of uncovering a witch. what does it mean
to want a family? i cut the melon & eat
sweet guts for days. cold from the fridge.
baby room shutters like an eyelid. i tell
no one about it. beautiful little secret.
under the floor boards there worms write 
messages to me like "please be gentle to yourself"
& "stop coming here." i simple ignore them.
pretend i don't believe in language. 
cradle each jar until it fills with red jam.
stork arrives again with fresh peaches.
how rude of me to wish to refuse his kindness.
i want to tell the stork "i need something
to make me feel loved?" but what would he do with that?
often, i see him stopping for a snack 
at the edge of the lake by my apartment.
i carry the baby room there & wash it off.
a mobile hangs from the white hot sun:
airplane & planets. once i was small 
& kept a secret. once i ate jam from
a thimble in the great darkness of storks.
now i have so much daylight i try to sell it.
tunnel into the baby room. plug in nightlights.
wait by the window for more jars & more pins.

in the aquarium city, all lust turns glass

once, i sold my gills for a fried onion. 
floated on my back & tried to remember breathing with you 
in our tight apartment rooms before there were
so many ways to be contained. i seek out
decorations: colorful pebbles & a plastic fern.
talk the algae into writing rhymed poems. there used to be 
a service for a few nickles, a man would come
& be your father for the day. he would 
teach you how to swim & teach you how 
to sink to the bottom of your life. it has long
since gone out of business but still the flyers
are pasted to tanks. they read, "who doesn't need
someone to watch them trying?" the buses float
belly up & blinking. cat's cradle electric wires
promise we could be dry again 
but i don't believe it.
hope is a necessary something. not quite evil 
but not quite good. i have tricked myself 
into believing in airplanes & trips 
to white sanded beaches & loving someone 
without hunger. i eat very old pieces of heaven.
try not to mind the sour of what once 
dangled high above. it's the coming down
that's the hardest part. here is the depth again.
when i swim to the surface of my smallness 
even i can see the mountain. we all say it's growing
& will one day eclipse the sun but who is to say.
what i cling to is the thought that one say
i will slip into another's aquarium. find them 
terrifingly alone & they will talk the years away 
with me. we will watch stop lights & try to remeber
being children with solid legs. our mothers 
in their viking burials, still trying
to get us to work with our hands. instead,
i can admit i have always labored with my heart.
left the rest behind. took lessons 
from dead whales & each startled eye
of a school of sardines. 

sibling(s)

she felted the fourth child last night in the dryer.
used a pattern from an old cook book. a brother
is never an intention. replacement for burried tongue.
siblings, we sew ourselves together each night:
a needle through each of our thumbs. to come apart
would be to no longer be a brethern. sometimes,
i walk as far as the tether will let me--edge of the garden.
boundary where the world drops off into gushing water & star. 
did you ever think, "maybe i could have been
a water lily?" or "if not here then when?"
the new brother was nothing like us. no skin
to make a blood pact. no eyes to blink for signals.
just a soft little body & button all across his face.
when he slept, we stole buttons & used them like coins.
the machines never noticed they just whirled 
& swallowed. if i were an only child i would mitosis
in the pink petri dish & give myself another.
scrape him from my own doubling & call him "brother."
sometimes, in the wrong light, no one recognizes me
from my past. i turn celophane & i wrap the sky
to the dirt so it doesn't spoil. most landscapes
are artfully layered jello. the kiss of god's fridge.
i ask mother why she knitted another one when we already
have the three of us & she said nothing. a brother 
is never an intention. arrival is seldom decided 
by the arriving. here i am, holding my thumb & looking
at the string straight through it. i ask my brother
if we could walk a little closer to the window 
but he is asleep so i scoop him up. carry him next to me.
watch the headlight cookie-cutter the night street.
 

putting on a stiletto at 10pm on a monday night

an ankle can be enough. 
the heel, a stone fruit, callous
from talking to garages.
outside the trees are made of sandwich wrappers
& the snow is throwing herself.
no one but me has entered my apartment
in eight weeks unless you count
the beautiful shadows of old arms.
i make a backdrop from an old sheet.
take a bath of lavender & tulle.
eat ice cream on the wooden floor
& reminisce about the centipedes
that used to sneak under my front door
in search of bird's eyes. 
my stilettos sleep within the hall closet
beside bags of dog food & a cart
i used to use to push my laundry 
to the laundry mat in the city. 
sit them on my desk beside my laptop.
shiny insect-eye black. glint of each buckle. 
i'm wearing boxers & an over-sized t-shirt.
my hair spills from my head 
like a wound. all my joints ask questions.
one at a time. then perched tall 
as an cedar or roof. sharp & ready.
snow on the sidewalk collecting more now.
my heart, a little suitcase packed
& ready for departure. life is full
of beautiful little exiles. this is mine
& i walk the hallway up & down
listening to the gallop of the heels.
the mare i become. the lamp light
gifting me more shadow. i am a sky-dipping dream.
my ankles, enough to last tonight.
each bone in my feet, 
like piano-skulled mallets, moving 
to yield a monster. i return to my desk.
admire the shoes a moment longer
before removing them. each a little air craft.
engine off. pushing shut 
the hall closet door. outside, 
winter letting herself go mad with wanting. 

embroidery 

i stuck your outline into the shower wall
using bone needle & blue thread.
it's all about where a bracket spills
into a frame. once we were just light 
with nothing to contain our edges. then, 
we learned how to fixture each other's shoulders.
i needed to keep that spool of you alive.
your electronic hair & the water 
soaking you like a sponge. there is always
a house with a window for watching so 
for now i'm undoing the stiches that kept
the roof from flapping away. a hawk 
eats a potatoe chip from my palm 
& causes no injury at all. you are now
just a speed & nothing more. who knows though
i might be just a passing thought 
in someone else's neuron. at least 
that would make me energy. i can feel my soul
leaking out of my face some afternoons
when it's muggy & impenetrably summer.
picking flowers, i stuff them into my pockets
where they degrade. write their thoughts
on the walls & into pillows. here is
the aster's prayer & the wishes of honeysuckle
growing all the way to the park by your house.
why can't i just like in your marrow?
a little hermit. a fire to keep 
a vial of my own blood. i don't want or need
very much. well, that's not true.
i want to be the thing you sew. a likeness
& gone of myself. no more flesh & story.
just what you chose to keep. a forearm.
a face. use purple thread. tie me 
to an acre of skin. 

hamburger praying

as far as take out goes i am the grease
on the bag. on the stoop a diamond of meat
asks to be fathered on into a taste.
at the snack shack we dipped our fingers
in honey mustard & dropped single fries
to watch the scent summon the sturdiest ants
we'd ever seen. at church everything is void
of hamburger. when you think about it,
all meat was once running away. all the cows 
attend a separate sunday school to learn
how to have useful deaths. i want to have
a useful death. once we bought half a cow
& piled her in the freezer. opened the lid
to see her singing hymns in foggy fragments.
does everyone deserve a god? only humans believe
in purpose like this. the cows, they think only
of their huge hearts & the wild sun &
the possiblity of rain. all those corn field roads
i won't be taking again now that i let 
the city drink my star light. there's always
tension between the here & the almost here.
if i eat just this one chapel, do i swallow
the mass too? all the shuffle of hooves.
once we stood on all fours & prayed 
for lettuce. my mother takes her spatual 
& waves at a passing biplane. no one knows
how to begin devouring. we put pickles
over our eyes & take a family portrait.
i haven't eaten meat in years but often
the taste will arrive to me phantom like 
& needy. it says, "you were blood too."
my muscles all want to be ground & edible. 
sweating in the sink. washing my forehead.
i'm the ripe tomato & the holy ghost. 

yearbook

i used to draw arrows to my soul
in perminant marker. the school yard 
turned into a shield of film. children 
wearing each other's winter coats. i used to
go to the nurse's office for her to brush
the knots out of my hair. she had porceline hands
& a diving board face. when i was captured
it was delightful. held still & printed 
& distributed amoung the sticky hands 
of fellow brambles. we ate fruit roll ups
on the jungle gym. hung upside down
& felt the blood in our skulls. in one photo
my eyes are wide as a night monkey. 
in another my hair is so short & boyish.
i want permission to say "when i was 
a little boy" but i won't give it to myself.
instead i say, "when i was a yearbook photo."
or "when i was believable." laid down
in the empty soccer field's goal & considered
climbing the structure while other boys
punched their pictures from a cornfield backdrop. 
it's so so easy to become a masculinity.
the edges of the yearbooks hardened with age,
once malleable & now & now & now just
blocks of shoulders. us, standing up against
the brick wall for our punishment. bad body.
bad boy. a cold day in february. fingers
red from the breeze. sound of 
a red rubber ball smacking the pavement. 

front zipper

no one asked how i wanted.
never in the hourglass & inkwell onward.
in the mood ripe-tide i took a needle
to the glass jar. siphone a single hair
& named it "look." on the porch 
a proud ironing board. tomb stones
playing crochet. grandmother trees
knitting sleep-hats for babies.
i used to tell the boy to use
his pocket knife & whittle me a house
at the edge of my own sadness. sleep with me
there where dead birds became pocketbooks.
stealing money from the collection basket,
i have been to hell for vacation. heat humid
body floating funeral down stream. 
basket ball courts with cigarettes 
hanging from their lips. i'm often tempted 
to ask god for a rose in my hair while i sleep
but i know he doesn't respond to challenges.
the proof is in the parade. a bass thrumming
in my left thigh. at the subway station
you & i were almost beautiful. took me
by the lip & yanked downward. how you remember me
& how i remember you are two separate animals.
don't tell me it was good. a soup
of headline & highline. shoes crumped 
by the door like crab shells. several months 
cracked open coconut. everything is tropical 
on the trembling yellow side of depression.
my loneliness used to have a same
but now it waits in the sink 
to be washed & put to use. 

countdown 

it was sooner than we thought--
the red number in the drain. the shoe
hovering just above a slam. all the tea leaves
had promised at least a decade but then
oceans turned inside out. slugs fell
like tears. barefoot, i went out to the garage
where my father knit his coffin 
from steel wool & ice. told him
not to worry anymore. what comes to pass
will come to pass. the cloud of noise
floating just over the highway. he stared
like a pin cushion's face. i packed all my love
into jelly jars. watched it buzz & limp.
ate false strawberries with bare hands
& wiped the stain off on any availible lampost.
up the street, a home was being auctioned off
to a hedge fund or a ghost. i'm rooting
for the ghost. in the crawl space
cats were telling their children the truth.
i wish someone would have done so to me
when i was small & pink-handed. instead,
bibles rung like bells. i washed my face
in the occasional river. then the time 
rushing like a slit throat. everything outward
even the orange heart. even the woven basket.
even the new blanket. even the 
school of minnows. even the elsewhere
& the maybe maybe somewhere. all that gone.
silk like & blue. kneeling on a tongue.
my father worked & worked 
& it was still not here & i still
was the only one watching as the numbers
shed themselves--as the sun shrank & swallowed--
as the coffin became a slipper-- as a moment 
became a bookshelf thing. a paperweight
arriving tethered to a white balloon.