allergen 

in the orange pollen yard my eyes
swell like turnips. blood gnawing
angrily at the air. i am a sea
of swordfish waiting to be kissed.
let me tell you about autumn 
& how my skin layered with the leaves.
searched pockets for green. 
lead in my bodies & my skull.
i keep my spare throat 
beside the cutlery. run it under
water in the sink. 
my father thins 
to a deflated balloon
& spirals in broth-thick september.
wears his nose as a pendant. 
who is going to teach my body
to swallow atmosphere? 
inside each of my cells
is a classroom full of folding chairs.
rows of boys. they all pick up their books
& run before the bell has rung. 
i make pills of my family's dust.
find a net to scoop the flitting 
from the butterflies. in the attic
we keep dead photographs
(ones we picked figures from
to use for dinner). empty frames.
i go there to ask bats 
for advice. show them the hives 
blooming across my collar. 
they say ailments can be nice
accessories. my eyes drip until 
i'm feeding a creek. 
water-striders strut across
the flow from my face. i crouch like
an afflicted statue. remove parts
one by one. first the eyes 
then the skin. save blood in mason jars.
i am a nothing in a rib cage. i wait
for all the world to be repackaged
with less fur & less crumbs.
climb the ribs like monkey bars
& dangle upside down. someone
bring me my throat! i want 
to pass the morning by singing. 

anti-aubade for a kutztown 

i'm too cold to be a horse
& not humid / sticky enough 
to be a soccer field. 
all day buggies parade 
back & forth to a tiny graveyard.
the barn only has one side
& that side looms to crush 
an unsuspecting hoof. i'm not
a disciple of the winter field 
but i know it well enough to 
chart its characteristics:
crooked stalks & a scare crow
with the likeness of a boy 
i used to sleep with. the word 
"home" has recently turned
into a cloud-writing. stares down
from above & laughs. houses 
bloom like cows & chew on 
electric wires. often i try 
to walk myself into existence
as if my legs might trapzee 
horizon & horror. as if i might
bring forth a new town from 
beneath the bones of the old. 
young & naive i used to promise
never to return to my dirt.
over turned & shook out my shoes.
i used to sweat off apple trees
& stairwells. they always find me.
tunnel through vein & here i am
at a funeral for horses. who 
is going to carry me when 
the gravel is not enough to hold
car wheels & cake plates? 
i brother with the treacherous
side-of-road slivers. everything
is thinner than it should be. 
mailbox wilts with voices 
in her head. no one is listening
so i talk into a future flower.
cup my hands. telephone the fire house
& let them know a hex sign 
in burning where the sun should be.
the clock tower slower looses 
all its hours until it's only
noon ever hour. or midnight
depending on who you ask. 
i meander to the edge where
a crease frills like lace. caress
the boundary & tell myself
i'm leaving very soon. 

microwave sweet potatoe

my heart cooks unevenly.
is prone to the textures of 
syrup & soil & cedar. will you
set the timer on my face,
tell me tomorrow i'll swell
so round in the dirt 
you'll have no oven to fit me?
please come kiss my dirt stained face.
brush off the old fingers
& replace them. hold my whole heft
in one patient hand. at the farm,
we used to unearth ourselves.
used to dig & see a nose
or an ear. pluck herbs 
like they were just
the pages of old dictionaries.
switch the sun out for an onion.
hold frying pans 
like purses. at the end of the hall
is always a microwave.
watch my face rotate 
on the small glass plate.
around & around i go softening
to an apology. i need to exist
without slice or sorry
but i'm too busy asking
if you know what went wrong
with my burrowing. we find hearts
in the floorboards. handcuff ourselves
to cabinet doors. i'll keep all winter.
i'll feed us day in & day out.
my tongue replenishes. no matter
how many mornings it aches with root.
you used to put me in the wheel barrow
& call me "tomorrow." i used to
look up at the sky & imagine
the clouds & the blue also the texture 
of earth. how dare it be 
un-caress-able. 
breathe my steam
& my cirus. 
i have your familiar 
in my carapace. let's grow old
& less valuable. 

germination

we hung the seed chandelier 
in the red room with no other furniture.
went to stare at it in the morning
& before bed as a kind of worship.
you always told me you didn't believe
in religion but all humans harbor 
a need to pray. i'd seen how well
you could kneel. your mouth opened for me
like a halfed bell pepper, hollowed & holding
onto your own private air. 
our stems green-ached all night,
knowing the fixture swung in secret.
did you wake up in the middle of the night
to check its progress? i did. barefoot. 
thought of eloping alone. is that still
eloping? yes, because i would take
the chandelier with me. hand it from
the roof of my mouth & wait patiently
for the growing. once, in the bathroom
i saw you prune your hair of leaves.
i told you, "why don't you keep them"
& you scowled like i was speaking in roots.
our bed turns to soil. i have to
shovel you out each day. this is not what
a house looks like. or, maybe, i was mislead 
about what our future would be 
with the seeds waiting a room away.
i hear their coiled thoughts: red / ripe /
august / knife / never / near / not me / not me /
you can't tell me we aren't parishioners.
i come again as dawn is blinking in the back window. 
lay on my back & stare up at the knot 
of white button seeds. tiny pendants. 
if i could where them in strands like beads,
witness the first opening against my skin. 
yes. i'll be too-close sun. blaze
& call for eyelids. we have taught each other
new ways to shut. here is my knob 
& my crook. a room away you're sinking deeper.
becoming a seed yourself. i could never
have stopped you. wash my trowels
with my spoons. shout from the red room
"wake up! wake up! 
you're missing them." 

in the hospital for sick moons

the hallways are paved with ripe rust.
take off your shoes & socks off at the entrance.
you need to remember every texture. 
drink water from a hole in the wall. 
i used to bring my moon flowers, years ago
when i thought she would improve.
took the elevator up to the building 
& tapped on the window to be let inside.
brought her dead daylilies & then
a potted violet. she slept & slept 
still as a stone. i still visit now 
just empty handed. make fists sometimes
& once i brought a crystal to leave 
by her nightstand. the moon doctors wear
ice out of respect for space temperatures.
their faces blurr beneath the surface
& their voices sound like trying to speak 
with a wall between you. it is lonely
loving a sick moon. coming to see her
perched in her bed like a beach ball.
i remind her when she used to loom
in the night sky round & full.
how, for all my life, i would look up 
at her glow & coiled around a sliver
of future. no one knows why moons
fall ill. there are theories but no evidence.
they do tests on the moon. removed
a fragment of her rock & stare at it.
when the test yields nothing
they give me the piece of her &
i pocket it. feel its weight all day
as the healthy sun blathers on 
about fatherhood. i do not know
if the moon will ever be well again.
her slumber only seem to deepen.
where did we go wrong moon? i never seen
a moon leave the hospital. just new ones
arriving from all across the galaxy:
small & ominous & blue & red moons.
the ocean weeps itself higher. the sea level
touches my ankles.
poets take to writing about the clouds 
where she used to dangle. 
on the elevator down i think about
how i would switch places with her
if i could. let her have skin & a body
& let me lay still while doctors tended 
to my surface. does she see us working?
does she look up 
at faces behind ice & remember 
how she used to swell? i tell her 
each time how much she is missed.
i say "get better soon."

transit 

the monarch butterfly thinks nothing of trains.
mistakes the rails for stiches 
where god kneeled down to mend
the severed earth. tastes oil in the air
& thinks "history." plans to spend
the day flitting between this side 
& the other. thinks nothing about 
barcodes or brains. elects to taste 
her legs for hints of the wilted rose bush 
growing outside the lawyer's office.
when lovers shout out windows 
the butterfly always thinks they're
shouting at her. someone says
"please call me back" & she blinks 
like a turned page. when she was new
& her wings still wet with opening,
she imagined landing on a human's face
to understand the texture of skin.
after attempting this twice she's mostly given up.
she knows she would have to land
in their sleep & it is so hard
to catch a human sleeping. her eyes 
are fruit bowls. she thinks nothing
about potting plants or wrists.
has never seen herself in a mirror.
doesn't think anything about trains
though she's narrowly missed being struck 
by the 6:03 PM train to huntington 
fives times. regards the trains rushing
as an act of the landscape 
the same way a hurricane might 
pull the trees sideways. she believes
the structure will one day catch her
& she will have no way to stop it.
pulses her paper-light wings.
hears pollen singing yellow & a radio
praying to anyone who will listen.
flies just above the ground
& unknowingly moves out of the way just as 
the train slices past full of human bodies
each with a face 
& some with their own paper.
she watches them leave, scurrying 
towards cars & buildings. the machine
dull from travel, knows nothing
of the monarch butterfly 
& i am there standing there by the tracks
watching the little creature flit 
like nothing is wrong. i want to tell her
she can land on me & i will never 
rush past. i'll stand still 
as long as she wants. 

scales or
at giant supermarket on a sunday

in the self check out line
i tell the machine everything
is a banana because they're cheap
& i'm running out of excuses
for stock piling security.
i picture a whole pile of bananas
overflowing the little scale.
lately my heart is a parking lot
plastic bag. whisper to me 
& i'll rush away as if i'm full
of apples. i come to the grocery store
like a church. pluck communion
from cold beds. light candles
with twist ties. where do you go
to place your weekly un-truths?
the self check out machine
knows me by name & sits with 
his arms crossed scolding me
for buying more cereal & more bananas
than i can handle. his digital mouth
says i'm a never going to be
a mother (with just his neon number).
not that i want to be. if i could
be anything i'd want to be 
a scale. i'd want people to have confidence
in my account of their wholeness.
i don't mean like a number scale
i mean a tipping scale like the kind
the justice tarot uses to measure
right & wrong. stealing is wrong 
but what if i think everything i eat
really is a banana? it kind of is.
i'm not stealing anyway, i'm just
adjusting the meaning of my food.
i'm just placing the supermarket
on a scale next to any other 
wandering location. in the parking lot
the store's blaring sign will ask me,
in a too-loud voice: HOW ARE YOU?
& i'll lie like you have to 
at that volume saying: i'm alright.
where alright means: likely 
less human every day or 
i am dreaming a great giant scale
to place both of my hands on 
& see which one is heavier.
in the back seat my food really does
turn into bananas. a whole little
jungle of them. rustling leaves.
i am not the extraction or the extractor
just a funnel for flesh. a box 
of crackers rattles where 
dusk should be & in the kitchen 
i stand like a shopping cart 
trying to decide which banana
to eat first. 
 

overgrown

the mirror is full of weeds
they lattice my double-face
like a wall. i don't have enough 
poison to free my flipside.
once we lived in a twin house
& the duplicate sofa slumped
into the fresh dirt. swam with raccoons 
& red wandering. the old men 
versions of ourselves used the oven
to store newspapers. they walked 
the halls holding hands for fear
of getting lost. your shadow self
is feeling left out. you should 
be more open to collaboration
with windows. i open mine
& see a necklace of reflections.
house after house. there was a model
god used to make us. filled each 
with spit & dust. i'm one cough away
from just being a cloud. even the clouds
have binaries. the twin house died 
& the old men selves laid 
face up in the grass. moss grew
over their bodies until they turned
to stone. the stones dispersed 
over the length of my life
& i find them all the time:
a knuckle, a wrist, a chin. 
our real house flourish in the wake.
we cut down the tree in the yard
but its shadow remained painted
in the grass. you can't 
deconstruct the twofold of every body.
sometimes i take my girlhood for
a walk. she is a goose & wants
to migrate with the rest of them
but i need her right where i can see her. 
we're all in the process of swallowing
the other side. all universes 
are just looking for the right one.
which version is going to be
the pleasure one? the mirror 
is so dense there's no such thing 
as checking my face. i touch
my forehead & see the leaves rustle.
there has to be a knife that could fix this
but then again isn't great 
to be the only one in a series?
i take to trusting the blurry form
seen in sidewalk ice. i could be
invisible. i could be a whole house.
i might even be the old stone man--
moss on my teeth. moss on my arms.
check my hands for signs 
of dilapidation. not yet. just
fogged flesh & a backyard ripe
with budding pairs of wrists.
take the doorknob from under 
my pillow & pocket it just in case. 

when road

for a house without remembering
i paid all my citrus
in the heart of squeezed winter.
all the gulls were frozen 
like paper clips & we were just children 
in our bed eating. folded covers 
dipped in the mouse sauce. 
whose brother were we fucking?
undressed him parallel. parked
a car in the old part of town 
where horses still died & turned
into bar stools. i needed a real turn.
the kind that could do away with 
everything useless in the atmosphere.
i took my place at the back 
of a long line spilling down the street.
no one asked what we were waiting for
but waiting is worth waiting.
as for the house, i forgot 
my gender in the basement & it got
covered in white-blue mold. 
i'll need to throw it out & start
scouring clouds for a new one.
i have a problem throwing away
rotted things. once i kept 
a melting cucumber in the fridge
in the hopes it would liven up again. 
yesterday i was some kind 
of husband to a clock tower.
cleaned her face with a blue rag 
i would keep in my back pocket.
the day before that your guess
is as good as mine. linear is overrated.
i do know that in a past life 
my knuckles slept so long
they grew a layer of moss. the line
doesn't move it just gets longer.
we think we're waiting for 
a parking ticket. i'm not but they are.
the spring is going to be 
magnificent or at least 
that's what i have to tell myself.
maybe i'll be a grave digger 
or a boat driver. you take out
your tongue to make room
for my fist. my fist is just
a kind of aquarium. i swim with 
tuesday water. just like that
no line anymore. a direct march 
up the road. snakes moving towards
the next moon. the moon is 
secretly full of unblessed communion wafers.
i have less & less need for elbows.
tie my hands behind my back 
so we can be evenly devoted.
you are all i need to keep eating.
i see your eyes peer from under the bed
& i pry another can of peaches open.
who is going to know what
we saw? you won't tell &
neither will i. 
i'll cut the road in half
& you tie off the wound. 

wawa sign

we pull off from endless.
carry doors in our pockets & our teeth
& our shoulders. i'm driving the car 
away or towards philly 
& you're toying with the broken radio
that keeps singing opera. the night
is coming for us & we've spent
other driver's tail lights 
on keeping the machine. dashboard feet.
hands tangling & untangling. early in love
we could spin any road into enchanment.
passing towns started to feel like
spending tokens. little house after little house.
dead car backyards. are we all taking turns
being each other's passerby? 
before we go inside the gas station 
we sort our savings in the cup holder.
quarters & wrinkled dollars & 
lonely dimes. enter as neon men.
fingers eager for wrapper crinkle
& safe passage. watch truckers
fill buckets of soda & a woman 
eating a soft pretzel 
by the trash can. she stares off
with a glowing phone in one hand.
we love to be urgent & impatient.
see the licorice rope highway outside.
buy gum & swallows 
& cosmic brownies. kiss haloed 
by gasoline smell. linger longer
than we should. the luminesce 
of the sign sketching shadow's
in the front seat. he puts
his legs across my lap & leans
the seat back. engines start & stop
around us like doors.