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. 

any address

one by one they slip themselves
into the mail slot. go thin 
in the canteloupe grin moon.
addresses carved in their shoulders.
my neighbors are hastening people.
they think of the next town
& the next. they put bobbins & 
wrapped hard candies in their mouths
to deliver upon arrival. i watch
with my dusty binoculars 
& consider joining them. i've never been
skilled at catching a gust
& riding it up to a new driveway.
i have the addresses of dead boys 
so i fold them & bake them into pies.
all distances are edible with
the right attitude though some
are more bitter than others.
the mail box is so full so i don't
try to add myself tonight. i imagine
telling a passerby "could you 
write an address on my spine? 
any address it doesn't matter."
i want to be plucked by my bones
& told on what dirt to spend my gravity. 
their bodies are going everywhere.
i read a "seattle" & a "boise"
& even a "canada." a siren machine 
yanks everyone's ghost
from their light-sleeping. 
alone, i walk down there
to the night post office just
to trace the slot. i peer inside
& there are all the travelers
dancing & holding hands in a little
may pole circle. they look up 
at my & tell me "get in or go."
i go. i'm too affraid. not yet.
the slot was so cold & thin.
my body balloons like a love confession.
no where to keep it brilliant.
i need company or a biplane. 
all those joy bodies
knocking close together 
in the mail box's blue glow.
how could they forget all their mails
& just skin live like that.
back home the binoculars 
even shut their eyes. i start
another list on my wall
of places i would like to die.
i don't get very far:
the woods in alaska, inside a manhole,
& by a dangling basement bulb.
more tomorrow. more tomorrow.
for now just ceiling standing 
until i'm too tired even for that.
cut a slot in the wall
to practice the necessary folding.
i never fit. not quite. 

road 

i asked where they were taking the street.
first with shovels & then the big monster machines.
entities in orange suites 
& goggles gobbling their eyes. 
the coordinated animals came to work early, 
grinding at the ground. hunks of stone & asphalt.
underneath, nothing but air. that's all
we'd been standing on these years.
i worried about the apartment building
& if one day while they worked it would 
give out from all the absence, drop 
like an orange from the neck. google told me
not to worry about that because all houses 
are necklaced up to the sky. the streets
had become obsolete. travel is a thing 
only birds really needed to do. we had
ground & gateways & what more did we 
really need. all the while i wished
i had chosen someone to dangle there with.
someone to ask, "have you seen 
the air today?" it only took about a month
to completely remove. for the first few days
naively i told myself maybe they are 
builing a new one. then nothing. 
then the quiet window & whoosh of rain
tumbling right through the groundless planet.  
i try to remember the road so i don't forget
what it felt like beneath my knees.
sometimes i walk the wooden hallway
with my eyes closed & pretend i am 
crossing a street. car horn. crossing walk.
who knows what it is we did wrong.
maybe it was just time for distance 
to buckle beneath the weight. i wish 
i could see where they took the road 
to dispose of it. what kind of cradle
or dump or disaster. all the streets 
& avenues & boulevards is one big farwell tumble. 
my biggest secret is i stole a fragment.
just one corner form my favorite sidewalk square.
it mosquito buzzes in the closet 
so i have to come & tell it to hush.
i stare at my shard on my most celophane nights 
& say one day you'll carry me elsewhere.
wind swings the houses all in a row
& sometimes at dusk i try to look up
from the upon window to glimpse 
the tether. what is keeping us
from going easy as the rain? i let 
my cell phone ring. a bird pecks
at the back door. moss grows
on the shower's tile walls. i dream 
a street building lover who has 
just enough pieces to reach me. 

plastic pumpkin head

full of tragic afterstories
& a wind-up moon. carried by
the neighbor man who loves me
like an almost son. i swing 
as jupiter on his old neck.
taste the ripe finger dew
from treaters open palms.
find a good light for me:
i want a flash or a bulb 
or a minor filament to floss with.
in the village, there are 
not enough vessels to go around.
resort to skulls for drinking 
& femurs for spoon. ask midnight 
who she is tilling tonight.
burial for my non-biodegradable self.
trying to teach grass to eat 
bubblewrap & saying, "come on please
the future of the atmosphere
depends on this." we don't all
work well under pressure. i do though.
i rise to the occasion & carry
wedding rings & crossword puzzles
door to door. i sell my face 
for grin. teeth & all. wipe
the licorice root clear from
where we meant to be children.
none left though, just adult men 
with their feet bursting through 
old canvas shoes. 
play ball with an iris. i can see
everything in the raw texture.
a drop in the bucket. a drop
in the bucket. holding rocks,
i always almost burst but 
i grit my lips. turn me 
upside down when 
there's no one else looking
so i can get empty. until then
not much can be done 
about the straining. the thing
about plastic-break is it's final.
the recycling bin is for beautifuls.
i am not & was never
a beautiful but i am a useful 
which is more pronounced 
& more handled. bring me to 
a good boy's door. i could cradle
car keys or even a spool of yarn.
to be a holder is to be 
a seer. everything fruition
passes through our grasp.
i'll pass you the scissors
& you can cut the balloon free
to become the latest planet 
too far away to name. 

one metal shovel

we scoop snow like dirt 
until the snow is the soil 
& everything grows ice-clear
past spring. the second ice age 
was not predicted by anyone
but my father who has always 
stock piled aprehensions. 
we have a closet just for fear:
dark & musty & take turns 
peering inside, then, out of respect,
we tell no one what we saw. dad witnessed
carrots, like fangs, yanked 
from the white earth. 
the next day he bought 
a sturdy metal shovel & propped it
by the front door like a new wife.
we knew it was really a new eon
when it snowed on into june.
now, in august, accostumed 
to eating ice for every meal,
we use the shovel to reach 
the old asphalt road 
that used to carry us elsewhere.
edges swarm with blizzard 
& must we. sometimes, when dad
isn't guarding the shovel,
i will cradle her down to 
what used to be the back yard 
& i'll dig like mad, as if i might
hit stone or dirt. the shovel 
clinks like a steel dress & 
all i'm left with are piles 
& piles of snow & a large 
heart-sized hole where the planet
should be. cruel shovel, letting me 
labor all afternoon to reveal nothing. 
i tell the shovel my secrets
like sometimes i'm thankful 
we work only to survive & sometimes 
i want to eat sweet & heavy 
squash or syrup. i bite 
my hand for the texture. the fear closet
gets more use than it should. 
my brother is probably there now
staring & staring. me, i'm going 
to learn how to grow peas or tomatoes
in the chill. we're al waiting 
from the mammoths to return.
when it happens we have the shovel
to protect us. dad has faith 
in the sharp edges of her face.
until then, i fill the holes
but not before peering down into them,
pretending i could, childlike,
tunnel a hole through the earth 
& emerge on a green otherside. 

happy [         ]

we hired a live-in clown for the weekend.
arguing, we couldn't decide if it was
my birthday or yours so we both put on
the folded paper crowns & both 
threw our watches down the well. 
told the clown to stand in the hallway 
& keep look out for spiders. he did.
he was skilled & caught four 
by the first hour. you kept saying
"we should celebrate" "we should
celebrate" & i said, "look we are"
with my crown on & my bare feet
& my mouthful, eating sugar from the bag
with my favorite soup spoon.
i am terrible at these kinds of things,
always finding it good enough to be alive 
& have something sweet to suck on. 
i didn't know enough to realize
you wanted guests. wanted to invite
the sidewalk's benign ghosts 
& one or two bears & maybe even 
a singer. i could have sung to you.
i thought a clown should be
enough for anyone. he sat with us
while we ate but wouldn't swallow a morsel
despite our encouraging. 
he said, "clowns don't eat. it's not
very funny." instead he poured water
over his face & cackled &
slapped his hands. we asked if
he was from around here & he just shrugged.
you told him to leave early
but he held his fingers up "2"
& said, "you said two days." yes, 
yes we did. so, the clown laid 
taking up the whole sofa
while me & you tried to be festive.
blew up one blue balloon each 
& held them like swollen lollipops.
when yours burst, a beetle 
flew out & we covered our faces.
when the clown finally left 
we couldn't imagine 
the apartment without him. i begged
& you wept & the clown crawled away
on all fours towards whatever
vehicle clowns travel with these days.
our ages flickered like neon signs
above our heads & you admitted 
you never wanted to get older,
that you'd only done so 
to make me happy. 
i had done the same & so we 
fished our watches from the well
& tried all night to make
the other one laugh. no luck.
spiders returned wearing 
clown shoes. 
we couldn't sleep at all. 

my father builds an aquarium in the basement

fills it first with sharks
& then with water. carries the water
down from the kitchen sink
in his cupped palms while the fish
gasp & wriggle like door knobs.
i watch tv & dad passes back & forth
in from of me while the show giggles
& flashes color. 
my brain turns off easily anymore.
lets in whatever mouth wants
to take over. tv show about 
who knows but at least it has 
texture. everything in the house
is dull: knives, lightbulbs, even
sharks teeth. dad tells the sharks 
to be patient while he fills their home.
the sharks are smooth & 
when he's gone i hear them whisper
about escaping in the nearby stream.
i used to fear sharks
in all bodies of water before
i realized they're all trying
to escape their fathers 
just like me. i ask dad 
if he needs any help & he assures me
he has this covered. next, 
he lugs a huge bag of colorful 
little aquarium pebbles. i know
the sharks will not be pleased.
they are actually hungry
& don't want to be babied. they are
adult sharks & they prefer grey everything.
mostly, dad's projects are
his children. the habitat almost complete,
he sets up a folding chair
to stare at the sharks who cower
in the far dim corner of the aquarium. 
dad tells them they are cool 
& sips a beer for his newest creation. 
i glimpse this from the wooden basement stairs.
when dad falls asleep, i'll help
the sharks slip out the back door
& into the grass yard. blinkless animals,
i see my own basements in their faces,
pale with worry & sickly love.
they don't want to leave my father
when i come to collect them.
i knew this would happen & it's true
the aquarium is magnificent. giant walls
of glass. even a little fake sunken ship
for the sharps to play in. 
but none of that is why they want to stay.
they yearn for a basement. i tell them
the world is full of basements
but they slip away & i return
to the tv which has always known
how to cradle my worries 
until they're nothing but 
blurred & blue voice
beneath feet of water. 

water / ink 

the spill turned loon wing.
bled through a shirt. bled through
a brown paper towel. migration
cancelled & put off till 
another more promising blue arrives.
i'm a porch dweller. i picking
the heads off future dandelions.
my heart shed like a fountain
when you over-turned. o my vase
of lillies. o my brother blueberry thumb. 
blot the stars' tears with 
an extended finger. tear ducts
swarming the moon. glossy 
insect beating into a warm bulb
to make a nice red-splotch. 
pouring a glass of water 
into the carpet to help it drink.
the house is thirsty from years
of un-released gossip. tell me the truth
about the stains on the wall,
were you drawing war machines again?
everything can be drown. blurred down
to just the lines' mischeif. 
i get in a bathtub to watch
my colors run. take a book in with me
to drain words. only the water
grips the original close 
to her chest. warbles with it then
waltzes the final say.
i could be kissing you right now
& we wouldn't even know, would we?
you could be stealing my bouquet
of pens & i wouldn't even try to stop you.
the morning is coming too early anymore.
i ask for rain to smear 
the day shut. one day i will 
speak my name into a downpour 
& never have to worry about it again. 

unresearched birth control methods

the woman's voice de-scales me
like a halibut & peels back the skin
in search of eggs. every planet
is hatch-able if it found the right
crook to mother it. i am warmer
than i've ever been. i sit on 
the back stoop & swallow obsidian
to protect against futures. 
i'm testing new modes of evasion.
i cut doors in my wrists 
for the worms to wriggle their way out.
i used to try to stop loving prolific boys
but i've given up & resolved 
to make a knot of my body. 
i put a string in his mouth & say 
pull harder. use the spoons to spill
my guts like the ripe inside 
of a mango. save the monsterous seed.
hold in my mouth. teeth like church steeples.
every seed can be swallowed
no matter how thick. dig a whole
to fill with rinds. he holds my hand
like a necklace throat. i cross my fingers
to keep myself safe. often i pray 
into family members purses &
steal quarters from the walls. 
there is nothing holy about 
fearing vessels. my water bottles 
grow danger. ten fingers. ten toes.
a new fist rising from the lake's 
early spring murk. blue the mother
away with a tuning fork. my voice
can shatter any profession of love
& leave my in the ambiotic fluid.
he didn't understand what i meant
when i said i am the pistil. he
gets to just perch & look 
like a good wasp-killer. 
we must both be barefoot. he must 
close his eyes & forget i am 
just a jar of thimbles. he will prick
his finger. did i say thimbles?
i meant needles. the water is stocked
for the season. take a net to the shore
& sift for children. name them all
after me but leave me out of it.
tell them their father was a 
conch shell or a comet. i'll pass over
in 200 years just to tell them 
i'm not sorry at all. the chickens 
get up & move to the field
leaving their eggs to chill & sleep.
in the field they feast on remnants.
he drives home without a beak. 

this is fine

i was a dog in your burning velvet room.
sat still as a stake drove into the earth.
a house was never my idea. houses can catch fire.
i wanted to sleep on my back & look up
at the cold blue-black inflammable night.
if i had a say, we would have wandered
across the bruised fields & strip malls
talking about nothing but furniture & utensils.
will you be there to help me clean up
the ash? the flames will take longer
than you think. i decide to name them like
children. the closest one i call "yours"
& the farthest i call "mine." will you 
bring me an apology from the kitchen? 
i have no idea what i would even do with it
but i want something to sit on the table
to stare at while everything comes apart. 
you promised to remain in frame when they come
but then your took to the attic to chew 
on smoke. everything true rises too high
to reach. we will not be starting over from scratch.
we will be culling the dust for buttons. 
with bare feet i pace & feel the floor board's heat.
there was probably a moment where 
we could have tried harder to put it out.
could have rummaged in closets to find material.
dosed the fire with salt or crosswords or
well water. instead we stared like shadows
of ourselves. loved some of the flickering
& how it made everything that'd hurt us
true & tangible. permitting the fire, 
you promised no more weekends for us
& no more mondays & no more thursday evenings:
just a few ripe days to pry the lid off of. 
come back & sit with me. the burning
is more beautiful by the second. 
when it is over i'll want to see your hands.
i'll want to collapse into you & tell you
how scared i was to see walls crack open 
like a jar of red heat. when i do please be
gentle. lay on your back with me 
& wait for night to come and
sift through the embers.