it says it won't rain, but then it comes

& i'm an aquatic mammal
with my wooden flippers digging for rush.
useless as my legs were 
i'm trying to find a synonym for running. 
drowned three times before midnight 
& each was heavier than the last.
there are different depths for different species.
i never wanted to be dazzling. the sharks
circle around my ankles like bracelets.
we all talk prehistoric & ask 
for each other's area codes. 
the world can go so blurry so fast.
drenched & no longer electronic 
i hold my circuit boards in my hands.
there is gold just beneath the skin.
wearing a baleen skirt i catch 
the future's dead leaves in my waist.
we should invent a song to nurture 
this gushing. or just a word that would
snake between droplets & find 
refuge in our ears. i dream of surviving 
when the sea levels rise. no kissing
on rafts, but rather evolution-ing backwards.
gills on chests. gills on shoulders.
sharp inhale between cloud burst.
i wore the grey dress on the day 
we no longer needed blood. carved a key
from stone & handed it over to a guard.
birds discussing other uses for feathers.
your face turned strange & amphibial.
no one told me it was going to rain
so hard & so fast. i would have 
cut an umbrella from the red. i would have
worn my bow-tie. give it all over.
i want to be so empty there's not even room
for a question. you could ask
do you still love me? & it would just
pass right through me. me, the swelling creature
making a house of myself. front door sore
from tredding water. just come in 
& bring fresh lightning with you. 

mice under skin

nice under skin. the nocturnal 
word from the curier saying
it's time to rice our eggplant
& hid the purple. 
time to tie the food up
in the tree so we don't eaten 
by hairs. all foot prints
lead to the crock pot.
i imagine an infantry of infants 
with all their squirrel fingers
& their rolling. push rodents
from cloud & hope they fly.
i sprouted one wind last year 
& severed it off for an entree. 
i knew nothing about warble
or chuck. just ate corn down 
to the marrow. god swept
each scull with the husk broom
saying: forget you were ever 
forget you were ever. 
i try to banish
sensations. shake my face over
trash can. squeeze out my hands 
in the drain: all strawberry red,
dripping like a goose neck.
but it always comes back. my face
crawls with currants. sweet little pebbles.
a webbed foot
opening under my breast plate.
can of quartz emptied across my thighs.
teach me to live like bed sheets.
i want to breathe through
invisible aqua & air. usher in 
my own naked ankles. mice in
the sky like stars. 
mice in the tea cup hotel rooms.
mice peering out 
from under my skin.

cer/vix

listen to your body
with the sea-shell hushing.
doctor men the size of ants 
climb my spine like a staircase.
you are invited to the party 
of concave & convex lenses.
i'm trying to narrow the image.
to see the world like my secrets might.
pry the third eye open like a walnut.
who rides & who is ridden 
in the stirrup kingdom. once i was
just a noble artifact & everyone
called me "sir" to my face.
now i go butter in the wind. i eat
with my bare hands & no one 
mistakes me for a gentle
man. i take my face off & dust 
the lining. wipe grime from grin lines.
everyone has a personal threshold
they are approaching or moving away from.
the doctor asks hot or cold?
he wants to know if he's getting close.
with my disposable camera 
i used to snap glimpses of god. 
blurred bright light coming
from a hole in the wall. glory 
to the gash where the birds forget 
their throats. could we take 
an endeavor all the way down to where
the sand turns to sugar? 
i have been giving all my syrup
to strangers. one man made a circle
with his fingers & his thumb
& said put it right here. i inserted
the baby blue easter egg. 
they find nothing but loose change
inside me. the closet exhaled
with relief & i look for websites
where i can give away my staircase.
rent it out to a nice girl
who might need that kind of flesh.
no. no takers. i'm too manic 
for my organs to be toolshed.
believe me when i say i didn't want
to have the doctors stay the night
but they told me they weren't done
so i made them doll beds.
i couldn't sleep with all their 
sleep-talking. one said apricot
& another replied she's not a girl.

sip / breath 

when the room fills with smoke
we punch our metal straws through the wall.
punctur paper to drink 
clean air. the last tree works hard
for us. toiling in the smog 
with its arms full of groceries.
the geese fall from the sky
mid-migration as kazoos. all we want
is a sip. because bedroom bowls.
because harpsicord & a sibling
riding the chariot home too late
from the empty mall. five dollars 
on the ground dirty from grit 
& grease. use the straw to scrape 
the layer of ice from our sisters 
foreheads. five in the freezer
waiting for good use. i need
another backup plan-- i spent too many
trying to find you in the murk.
i traded my lungs for tulip bulbs.
collected feathers for salad. 
we clutch our straws. some try
to drink dirt. tell stories that 
the whole earth is full 
of a great round whirl of air.
some dig in their yard for it.
hole after hole. trying to reach 
a huge inhale. they find nothing
but stone & sometimes an antique 
bicycle & once the corpse 
of a deer. no luck at all. 
i watch them but i don't believe 
in the air-earth theory. 
it's more likely we're just
the last of a last & we are searching
for a myth to save us. for breakfast
we serve air in tall ornate glasses.
i swallow slow as i can knowing
there will be no more till night.
i can never tell if i really
want a lover or if i just want
to put my mouth to their 
& for a moment glimpse their air. 
the wood peckers turn to light switches.
my neighbor thinks he's hit air
but nom he crouches, it's just
a birthday balloon. lifts the carcass
from the soil. i hold my straw 
& press it through the wall 
of my room. close my eyes 
as i breathe in. 

ribbed

i name the staircase in your throat.
hurry down inside where the shadows
are already starting. 
we put our fists in the handshake machine
& come out dilapidated men with nothing
easy to say. in the bedroom you are always
hard to threshold. who is going
to be the monkey & who is going
to be the thimble. i drink rain 
for breakfast & hollow out my stomach
to use as a future drum. farewell to 
the ridges of the obelisks & 
greet each doorless closet like 
an uncle. our families know nothing
of how we use our knees & where
we place the edge. i tell you
to twist the horizon line
until there's no telling what
is a hemline & what is an ocean.
spit a tooth in your palm 
for me to swallow later. i need a 
a location to drip. crave a huge lipped bowl.
on the staircase i can't seem
to get higher. take the banister 
& hoist myself onto the white tongue. 
we should have been moths 
or jupiter beetles & carcasses 
in the deep end of a blue public pool.
instead we were half boy half chronicle.
for this we can promise nothing
but friction. skin can become dragon
in the dark of another half boy's wanting.
we cut the clock into seven pieces.
one for each god. tell me again
how you earned your distance inward.
take back what you said last year
about my heart being covered 
in barbs. i have done the pruning
& here you are in my keepsake 
with a pinewheel if feet. i can barely
fit you in my snake's skin purse.  
 

white noise closet

sand rained down like hush hush
hush. i want a container 
so the desert can tell us 
what it's been thinking. the old moon
replaced with a fresh hard boiled egg.
aliens waiting by their phones 
for the truth. in the box 
i converse with dead televisions
& they suggest i plug my ears 
with ice. the slow release. 
a tiny coffee mug chews a hole
in my palms. you walk through 
as if i were a photographable arch.
at the end of the universe & the hallway
is a lush park where all the trees
never change & sound is caramel textured.
i like the grit of my closet though.
the way it makes me prickle. 
sometimes i grow needles 
& everyone backs away. 
a cactus once whispered to me 
get out of the sunlight so i bought
sunglasses at the corner store.
a doorknob is a kind of jewerly.
don't touch. don't open. my sound
is personal & you don't undestand
what it means to capture.
tongues are a brand of doorknob.
here none of my thoughts
go skipping away with hard candies
in their mouths. i am a choking hazard.
i am at risk of falling
& cracking my head open 
like a bowl of punch. marshmallows
swell where the ice should be.
i'm all about coaxing sugar
out of the cracks in the wood.
in the closet, i can't turn around.
just to be clear, this isn't
the gay or trans closet.
this closet is less about keeping
& more about salvation.
this is the kind of box you could
get raptured inside if you're
not careful. never be too holy
or you might get lifted
on a day when god is lonely.
i make sure to commit 
small managable sins 
each & every day. the rush gushes 
from under the door & i try
to scoop it up. don't go.
keep me close & stormed. i want
to have no dry air in my head.
what can you do but lay 
on the floor & hear all the neighbors
in the world talking about 
traffic cones & lost lovers.
i am a leftover person. 
wait on the other side 
of the door. don't knock 
i'm busy with a plummet. 

knife me yes

the serrated church 
is opening like a too-early blossom
on the face of the dead lake.
my backyard is an ice zoo
full of howler monkey echos. 
the knifes take a walk 
hand in hand like sisters.
if i had a sister i would
have cut off her hair as if
she were a doll. on a thursday
anyone can be sacred. a collective
waiting moth perches 
on my wrist. the phone 
disconnects & i try over & over
to sit back in your mouth
in the grandfather-smelling recliner.
hang knives on the wall. 
throw knives to stick in the ceiling.
it's the knife's birthday (hurray!).
power is a fleeting planet,
easily severed. 
rising & sharp behind the sun. 
would take only one day
to walk the circumference.
the knife knows everything 
there is to know about my 
fondant & my cream. marched 
down the street carrying a bucket
of roadkill. i want ethically sourced
bones. the knife wants 
to pare everyone he meets
down to the smallest division.
if you saw us in august 
you wouldn't believe 
what we've become. cubed,
i glisten like the only appetizer.
tooth picks swarm in the drawer.
knife of me, you knew
exactly what to say to make me
ring. knives multiply 
the longer you leave them 
without a block of cheese 
to muster. table covered 
in knives. knives lonely. 
my skin a platter you used to
leave your shoes on. how should we 
spend the last nights of our winter?
i want to take turns 
throwing knives out the window.
don't try to stop me. 

pigeon 

i ask to be one of them.
it's march & out the window
i watch them parade each day
back & forth by the railroad tracks
as empty trains pass through 
like milk cartons. 
clusters & coups & caravans
of pigeons. 
they stare holes through buildings.
everything whistles in the wind.
i show them my skin 
& they plant rows 
of iridescent feathers,
working swiftly with their beaks
excited to have another 
piece of the flock. 
i can't understand most what they say
mutter mutter mutter: soon 
& please & faster & hunger
hunger & hear & soon soon
soon. get on my knees 
to follow them to the garbage kingdom 
on the other side 
of the concrete supermarket.
where will you think i've gone
when you come to find
my bedroom full of feathers 
& a bird sitting at my desk?
will you shoo my down the hall
& out the window
or talk to me softly 
as if i were really your lover?
it doesn't matter though
because the pigeons say
i can't return. they say
here & now  here & now here & now.
you come home from work 
& slip into the alley. how have 
i come to miss the most mundane
parts of my life? 
i eat trash with the rest.
learn a song about wheels 
& weather. sky greys. a clouded eye.
we rush beneath 
train station's roof as 
it pours. i think of windows
& how water drips across 
that surface. the pigeons 
dream of factories & plastic.
the pigeons promise me 
after a week or so 
i won't even remember
moving without a congregation.
at night i miss you most.
look for your bright window
to dim before i let myself sleep.
maybe one afternoon
you'll join us. i'll sew you
with feathers &, in secret,
away from the others 
we'll talk about 
what it used to be like. 

retreat

i carry dictionary 
to the bottle cap with the goal
of losing one word at a time.
pluck them out like eye lashes
until i image bubble.
carbon in the creases. carbon
in the air. build humans 
to stand tree-like in the causeway.
take me for what i'm worth:
a necklace of fake pearls 
or a second ear-piercing.
sewing an umbrella by hand
i decide to name it "sundown."
in the mirror, a dinner plate
looks back at me. i want to eat
less & more. survive off only
windchime feasts. language
saunters up & down my spine 
& i tell it to settle down.
i tell it not to bother 
with whatever it is i need.
the lexicon is a neighbor 
smoking on his/her porch
& watching the plow go by.
for now, i don't have anything to say. 
the last truth i told was about
my tongue in the grotto. 
a "you" laughed a lot & i cried
hoping to skim the you towards an "us."
i replace the word "vacation"
with "vow." i want to take
a vow to a beach no one else
knows about. unstick "us"
from the ceiling. walk, a shoe
in each hand, & fill them 
with quartz. the mine is open
& ready for theft. replace "mine"
with "morning." i want to tell you
how to word each other 
into the right basement.
turn the lights off i want 
to suck on my pictures in peace.
can't you hear the world 
turning to fabric? rustling 
then gone. 

before GPS

i folded the map into a bird
& asked it where we should be going.
night was no longer as issue 
seeing as we'd taken the daylight pills.
we just wanted an arrival.
you toyed with the radio 
inside your own mouth & 
i put my feet up on the dashboard.
no one held the steering wheel,
it just pizza-ed back & forth as
the road accordioned then thinned
to the width of a thumb. 
my grandmother's car smelled 
like burnt hair & rosaries. we held 
our breath. we stole everything, 
including our teeth. 
we didn't deserve 
the welcoming trees.
they rained flowers on us
as if we'd just been married.
had we? had we just 
been married? i can't remember. 
i am prone to lying about
both important & unimportant details. 
this was the time before GPS
so there was no device to ask 
how or what we needed. rolled down
the window to fish the air 
for flavor. did i craved 
a chapel or two? did you hunger
for a gas station? braided 
sun beams to use as belts.
we backseat-broke our jaws 
using them as sickles. 
i asked you, "can we 
go home now" & you laughed 
until you turned into 
a cluster of bubbles. i was
traveling with no one then
or possibly all along. 
it is terrifying to realize 
you are the driver & ahead 
is a decision. turn signals
arrived like clucking birds.
i asked the map 
what the name of the mountain was
& she shrugged. i was not
going home, was i? 
longer & longer, the road ran out
of things to say so we both
just stared at each other.
i parked on the side
of a whirling highway
where the sky handed out
personalized stars. 
i held out my hands 
& cupped the spool of light.
it sang of jupiter sunsets 
& a fireplace large enough
to eat us all. with it, i slept
in the lilting backseat.
fell asleep to headlight
then taillight
headlight then tailight.