once we laid down in the grass

let ants crawl across wrists
& voles gathered under our spines
to discuss their desires. 
you were vibrant 
in your budding.
little mouths spread across your face.
i could have kissed you anywhere.
you could have rolled me into a knot
using only your tongue & teeth. 
all the centipedes circled 
& made coins of us. gliding birds
traded branch for branch
& beak for beak. we counted
clouds & listened to one pass
another. faint sound
of cloth on cloth. i forget
if you wanted to be an astronaut 
or a pie maker & if i wanted
to run across water or sink
deep underneath. the summer 
was all we had. a tunnel 
carved & craved. the morning 
like a dripping planet ready
to be named. we were both 
hard amber candies. 
rock candy knuckles.
one last loose tooth to plant
in the grass & hope for a teeth tree.
the line between friend & lover
is strewn with bed rooms
& christmas lights & popsicles.
nothing could tell me otherwise.
i would get up before you
or you before me & then 
everything would be melancholy
& flat-footed again. let me braid 
your hair. let me snap the neck
of a dandelion for you. 
leave the yellow skull 
blinking upward. a placeholder
for where our bodies posed 
as discarded feathers. 
i will be a boy in the future
if that means anything at all.
a bracelet of beetles 
& just one worm wriggling
across your collar bone. 
sky greying & readying
to drench us in fresh oil.
we get up before thunder. 
voles disperse. bug search for
our warmth. a kiss moth-flies 
between us. me to you
or you to me? 
we don't talk about it
at all. rain comes.  

lioness eats a bull


wake up for warm impact.
dinosaur dust overture-rising.
with the lions sick & gorged on sun, 
i wait. disciple of skin.
patient for the split point.
hoof to dusk. my jaw: horned
& gleaning. the fissure knocks 
through me. fist to earth.
nothing spinning but each iris.
pluck bull from his own heart.
wild search lights eyes
& telephones face. already too late.
all the hooves in the world:
tumbling hale. i was made
to dismantle even the twilight hours.
underneath everything is the same
torrent red impulse. 
he writhes & i think of the children
in their fresh moon teeth
how the meat will look jeweled 
in purse-throats. this isn't
about devour or decore though 
this is about the legs buckling
& my own pressure. i kill whatever river
i desire. everything is a choice
between water or blood. 
don't wait for permission. don't wait 
for weakness. the bull 
believed himself a god. let his horns
swell heavy & ripe. sometimes i fear
i will eat so many that i will be cursed
with a horn--one so big it weighs
my head to the ground. check my face
for signs in the drinking pool. 
nothing to be affraid of. there is
a swallow in the sky. a place to eat again 
with our bracket-legs doing gym 
for the same prey. 
the still animal becomes nothing but heft 
with no soul to do the puppeting. 
i bite first for myself. thick skin 
pryed open. i work to distort 
the solar system 
buzzing inside. keep that 
cavern for myself. check my face
again for a horn. 

light bright

piece me one comet at a time.
you stand on the roof with 
your butterfly net & your sunglasses 
waiting for one to pass.
there is a flower in the dark ocean
of your throat. when did we become
so prone to design? you lay down
to take a break & i plug in 
all my dream water for your shoulders.
i make you a heart & then a sail boat.
the only glow in the world. 
sifting for humid fireflies
to give the secret away to.
we threaded our fingers together
& promised to be blue jays
in our next lives. i blueprinted 
a new steadier tool song 
& we hummed, never yeilding fully
to the potential vibration. 
the diagram was incomplete
& without an escape route. 
everything road on this precise
kind of figure but then there was
the radiant errors in our eyes.
going wrong. going so beautifully wrong.
how could we resist the pattern
from the grass to the artirficial?
i needed you which is to say 
your power source was stronger 
than mine. light bulbs burst
behind your mask. me, a century younger,
i only had a little stove. fed the flame
dollops of coal. the future was
your gameboy. we took turns guessing
the next morning's instrument.
you'd let me write my name 
in pink, using all of the color.
not enough for anyone else.
me, the world's only pink word.
who taught you to be so gentle?
to share your device in the dark?
with the machine, i drafted your arteries
for science or for love. i hung them 
behind the curtain where only i go.
kneeled to them like 
an idol. you have no idea 
what the prototype means to me.
you go on, mesh net hunting 
the next passage. i hear
your foot steps. the sketch
will be all for me. 

grease

he ubered to my throat
with a handful of oil dripping
down to his elbow. on my old laptop
the movie played & told us
where to put our faces. often,
i found it best to just accept
being the girl in his fry.
girl meat: chicken, sometimes hot dogs,
& turkey bacon. he told me this was
his favorite part & then took a bite
out of my throbbing. the bed broke
in half like a communion wafer.
he told his family i was a girl
& i said, "nothing to see here."
i would have done anything to be
the medallion or the slick-back.
took a ride through raw hamburger
& on the other side parked to watch
the moon lay empty. he was always hungry.
i thought being close to him i might
learn to be that ardent with my own 
tunnels. held a fork like a 
clutched key. walked home at night 
vibrating with "no no no." how to 
become a fold. the butcher in the heart
of every shadow. the movie still playing.
we danced on our own cutlets. 
pointed, "there is my thigh" &
he claimed to know me 
in the culinary way. a recipe 
reached for in the earnest credit 
rolling drive into the sunset mouth.
someone can say "i love you"
& just mean "i want to own
the most precious parts of you."
the duct tape it took to be holy.
his body gone but hands still 
worlding around my throat. 
oil stained bed. "i'd like to 
see you again." movie still playing.
starting over. the beach ready
for bare us. the ocean, thickening. 
a girl in the corner
looking down at her ankles.
press her like a folding chair
into nowhere. dollhood 
in the dark. shadows waving 
hello/goodbye. 

life saver


all summer we played the drowning game.
faced down in the pool. held our breath
until the water turned purple as a bruise around us.
teeth like strips of mint gum
we chewed our mouths wild & white.
one neighbor fell victim to air
& became a flotation device. we took turns 
filling him with breath. 
when one of us wouldn't wake up
we dropped a life saver candy 
into the bobbing water & let 
the sugar bring them back to life.
backyard resurrections. clapping as 
we inhaled the sticky humid afternoon.
i swam through so many cavities:
all round & "O-ing." got my leg 
snagged on worry & emptied myself 
of all language. spoke to dead whale ghosts
& sharks lost in rivers. three neighbor bones 
jostling at the pool's blue bottom.
we left them there as reminders of
what can happen-- played with them like 
any other toy. brought a pelvis to the surface
& tossed it far off saying, "race you to it."
could never find the skulls though--
it was as if they became 
their own pools elsewhere. everyone has
another person swimming in their skull
it's just for some it's more literal 
than others. my swimmer mostly leaves me alone
with the exception of thursdays when
he's most lonely & knocks on the pool wall
as if anyone can hear it. i pretend
not to hear him. life is a series 
of strategic neglects. i miss drowning
but it's no fun alone. you need a town's worth 
of toes watching from the edge. if not
it's too mundane. saving yourself
is so unglamorous. i do it almost 
every night. cough up life savers 
onto my own kitchen floor. you can't be
a childhood again. you just have to 
take what you learned from drowning
& apply it elsewhere. i hold my breath
when i wash the dishes. i float 
on my back even when there's
no water.

rot

dear apricots & arugala
& wrinkle forehead & last pair
of sneakers, i am sealing the windows
& doors for you. we are not going
to fester or spoil this year.
brother in the bathroom
brother in the attic. freezer
family unit. fill each room
with fresh blue ice. ceiling snow.
basement bomb shelter.
the big secret is
everything puts of dying 
in winter. standing outside,
waist-deep in snow angels, we had
no fears of green mold blooming
on our paper plate faces.
now as the birds start encouraging 
humidity, i hesitate at everything.
morning dew on my ankles. 
i had a rot starting at my apex
& traveling to the surface.
it was only a matter of sunrises 
before i was nothing but 
a phantom. bought freezer after freezer
& plugged them into the holy sockets.
churning like mules. the cold
slow at first & then disasterously sudden.
putting on jacket after jacket.
why do we resist the inevitable
statue? i just wanted to look
beautiful by the time summer comes,
then i can putrify in a celebratory way.
for now every sits & stares 
at the frozen tv not eating 
or blinking, just learning new ways
to inhale. brothers frozen solid 
like latent cicadas. dad starfished
on the floor. mom a chicken nugget.
everyone so safe in their freeze.
we have all the time in the world now
to stare out & write skull-only poems.
tell stories to ourselves. 
won't you come be frozen with me?
we can ignore everything outside.
let the fires eat the coast 
& mushrooms sell each other conspiracies,
all the while still & waiting
waiting for the next great unthaw.
i have a bed room full of ice already
just for you.

remnant maker

they would leave body bags 
of shredded paper 
outside the office building. 
buldging with slivered words,
i burrowed inside & slept
in the fragment & ribbon. felt 
my tongue tatter too-- become
strips of past necessity. 
a dead credit card humming,
swarming my ears. i wanted to buy
some nonesense like a kiddie pool
for my kitchen or a play-food set
to pretend eat when guests come over.
let words cuff me. 
trance of treasure
& old gold-watched men. a cane
brimmed from the  
plastic lining. all the secrets 
lived there like wasps.
if you don't bother a secret
it won't bother you. naively, i let them
envelope me. wondered who will
do the dismantling of my life
when i am no longer there
to lock the front door & 
junk the junk mail. a little boy
standing resolute above a shredder
& a father telling him
"careful, 
don't get your fingers caught."
i snagged my finger on 
a ripe strand of promise
in the pile. every once in awhile
you find a legal paragraph
so sentimental it deserves to be prayer.
a will wrote itself 
in the basement with only 
a candle & a can opener. 
i always emerged terrified
& papercut. knowing too much
is irresisteble & then irrevocable.
secretly took a few pieces home
to try & sew them back together
on the kitchen table
by the light of the only firefly 
left in the city. i was a good 
investigator of dead trees 
& octopus ink. never did 
get enough pieces to make 
a document. tell me, what evidence
is your favorite? i like 
a driver's license or hand print.
i dusted for more hand prints 
in my apartment & found i was
truly alone. both comforting 
& hollowing. didn't return 
the splinters. i still read
them aloud to myself when i'm searching
for what to say to all the window's
dying insects. we're all just
one good remnant away 
from poof! & gone.

piercings 

the moon got a nose ring.
i bought a pair of earrings 
for my favorite cardinal & she went
to the prom alone. a bear stole
my studs & checked her reflection
in the shifting river. 
whole streches of wide open skin. 
we should
go hiking with our mouths open 
to catch butterflies. where & how
will you place the door?
i told you to stick your finger
in the wound on my side 
& it came away with glitter.
we laughed. simon put his hair
in a man-bun before 
carrying the cross 
down to the bridge. i'm not saying 
we need a jewel or even a jukebox.
i'm just saying some music 
would be nice to pierce with.
paper towels 
& a sewing needle slipped through skin. 
ice cubes.
red november. nice & even.
one on each side. how do you make do?
i inspect my profile. cut silhouette 
froma scrap cloth. pin to the door
in case of intruders. 
breaking skin
like a soda tab. i was so shaken
& shimmering. who knows what i was 
supposed to do with my hands
so i put them on your waist like
a high school slow dance. 
there aren't enough 
disco lights. there aren't enough 
bed room floors. i wanted to dangle
from your ear lobe. hang glider.
honey spoon. halo. finding holy
at the end of a pester. drill
to puncture tooth. i've got you
by a short string & i don't know
where we're going. let's leap  
face-first into the needle-stack
in search of clasps. you don't need
to worry about stigmata. 
there's already one.
there can only be one. 

strawberry tree

in october i ate handfuls of leaves
to get my reccomended dose of orange.
wall-papered my bathtub with paisley moons.
the strawberries i found hovering
just above the ground & tasted 
like ghosts of themselves. with a tweezers
i removed their freckle seeds
& planted them between the floorboards.
briefly a vampire, i drank the blood
of willing animals: a neighbor 
in his fishing hat & a tired dog 
who just wanted to sleep. waited for
the seeds to flourish. i heard them hum
all night long like little bells.
the year's end was looking more 
& more red by the day. i could see it
from the window at the end of the street
where no one lived. just a blare
of real righteous red. i could have
gone to church once or twice but
by the time i thought of it
my soul was already occupied 
with knitting egg-cozies. the leaves
browned & wept. finally, one day,
i woke up to a strawberry tree
complete with feathered tongue. 
it tinkled with its metal arms & 
the fruit crawled down from its branches
on hands & knees. plump little strawberries 
wrong in their season. i told them 
they could be my wonderful secret
but we had to hush because there were
angels on patrol. angels enforce 
what can grow in what season & 
if they heard my strawberries 
i'd be forced to give them up. 
we danced like girls & i swallowed 
until my whole face was pink-red.
balancing your color wheel in the cold months
is nearly impossible, so why try?
everything worthwhile is red.
red lips. red blood. red berries
humming contently. swarm of my heart.
in the morning the berry tree
wilted & died. i burried its bones
in the yard. october swept 
the porch with her hair,
taking the strawberry leaves 
& a few of my fallen freckles.
nothing could have prepared me 
for winter. 

needle nose plyers 

the alligator sold his head for scrap
& bought a burrow with the fool's gold. 
i find the tool like crossed legs 
down where the dirt's gone concrete.
everything needs to be removed eventually 
& you show me a bullet
lodged in your knee from a kid's war 
in the far haystacks. i am the artist 
of extraction & from all around 
animals & plants & humans arrive 
asking for assistance. 
i stand over rows of tilled earth
& help the farmer pluck out the teeth
he planted years ago. some have grown
the size of fingers. another day
i pull pins from an old woman's arm
while she tells me she wants to sew
a quilt big enough to cover her whole house: 
each patch a new color.
it is comforting to always be removing--
i can forget there are decisions
& focus on the unwinding. what do you
want to take back? i can help you.
once, i even removed a year, thrashing
& angry, from the jaws of a young girl.
she wept & thanked me & then she turned 
a year younger. for practice, 
i used to ressurect song birds
but they told me they didn't want 
to come alive again. i could never understand.
now, when they pass by they all silent glare.
they value complete cycles. they burry 
their dead in the clouds but still
sometimes one will plummet & i'll be
gripping my plyers, trying to resist
the tug i could give them--feathers alive again.
truly though, what creature doesn't need
a good lightswitch. i only did myself once.
there was the handprint you left
on my back. open wide. all five fingers.
i could feel it day & night.
it was hard to reach around 
but i snagged the corner. your hand turned
into a song bird & promptly died. 
sort of kind of free, i took the corpse
to the backyard to let the flock handle it.
is it wrong to regret your regret?
if i had left it there maybe
i could still feel that fragment of you--
your hold hand open & chirping 
against my bare skin. i meet the alligator 
in a dream to ask him
"do you miss your face?" but 
he has no mouth to answer with.
i move the plyers open close 
to hear what's left of his voice.
he says, "i miss everything."
i don't give him his skull back. i run 
from the hole in the earth
back into my bedroom. keep the plyers close.
more uprooting tomorrow.