sky packing

from you i learned how
to fold the sky like a t-shirt.
how to take nothing with you
when you leave. back then i was
trying to gender so hard. i watched feathers
fall in the alley between our apartment building
& the bed bug place next door. i wore
button-up shirts that left me feeling
like i was always choking on a word. 
in my room, a door opened in the ceiling like
a portal. i fed it hair & the one tooth
i lost & never told anyone about. 
on the night i left the city i took the box cutter
you left on the counter. i was going to leave it too
but i climbed up on the roof & hacked off
a little gill of a pulsing sunset. 
i used it to breathe underwater
for the next years. i am trying my best
to not be a person who misses my phantom genders.
the lives i could be living. i still have the sky.
i put it in my mouth where the tooth
used to be. i call you from the portal door.
feathers still fall only less frequently. i eat them in the field.
the sky gets bigger every year. so much harder
to catch & keep. my lover & i talk about
where we would go & what we would take
if we had to leave suddenly. this country is
eating us. how soon, i don't know. if i could go back
i would refuse to leave. i would have taken
everything. the sky & the clouds all stuffed
into my little volvo with the sputtering engine.
the emptiness that once was the sky 
looking down on the roads & the railways. 
then, when i got where i was going 
i would have called you weeping. maybe i would 
have told you sooner. opened the sky up & let it pour. 

big spider

i am done killing spiders at this point.
i make little pacts. little handshakes. i say,
"i promise not to bite if you don't."
i don't actually mean that. i don't want
to hurt them even if they do bite. 
this is the catholic still in me. there's
a passage the priest talked about once
where jesus says if someone slaps you you
should turn the other cheek & let them
slap you again which is kind of kinky
if you ask me. the spiders are developing
their own internet. the spiders are singing
in their spider language which is as soft
& sturdy as their thread. i asked once
if the spiders would consider making me
a spun dress. they agreed but only if 
i never showed anyone else. secrets are
what bring us together. i have the dress
but of course i cannot show you. when i die
the spiders will take it back. use it to catch
gnats. there will be a feast. my aunt died
today. i think about the spiders in her house.
what they say to one another. i do not miss
her yet because an absence is not a hole
punched in the drywall. it's something
that grows. the tree in her yard that swells
with pears. the tree out front i climbed.
all the spiders there, singing. 
i want to build a house just for 
the spiders. let them metropolis every corner.
rain comes today & the spiders sleep & i wish
i could sleep too. the fire will not start. 
all us, spinning something. a huge spider
arrives in the bathroom. my partner asks
if i'll kill her. he begs me. her legs are thicker
than toothpicks. when he is gone
i whisper to her. i say, "i will keep you safe,
you just cannot be so bold." my heart breaks.
how many times have i been told that?
the spider listens. crawls behind the toilet.
when my partner is asleep i come to check
on her & she is gone. 

soup bones

deep in the fringe woods
there is a bone tree. i have visited it 
since i was a dinosaur. have come to leave
offerings of syrup & eyelashes. 
the bones ring like a hollow wind chime. 
i think everyone has a bone tree
they just have not gone wandering enough.
i ask permission to leave with 
a humorous or an ulna. the arm bones
make the sweetest soup. on my worst days
i have begged for a rib. thin & easy. 
translucent broth like a winnowing halo
cut in half. you do not get to choose your bones.
the tree has given me teeth. once,
a whole pelvis to wrestle with. 
that night an angel came & would not
stop calling me jacob. it was some bible thing
that i think i heard once when i was 
boiling in a church. the best thing about broth
is that you can share it & then it's almost
like sharing your bone tree. i have never
taken anyone else to see it. the tree would
dislike that very much. i am bad at secrets.
hence this poem. i crave confessions.
maybe it is because i was raised catholic
though i was never good at speaking my sins
aloud. i always made something up to the priest.
he was a boney man. i wonder if his tree
gave him nothing but finger bones & jaws.
he coughed a lot. folded his hands. i always wished
i could hear what my parents said in confession.
was it the truth or did they broth their sins
just like i did? sometimes i visit the tree
& it is empty. other times there are so many bones
that i grow fearful. what has the tree done
to acquire this many skeletons? really,
everything is a soup bone if you need it to be.
once, in the city, i could not find the tree.
i was wondering around. i had not told anyone
that i'd taken the train away. i found 
a lighter on a bench in the park. boiled it
until i could taste the fingers that held it.
the flame too, just out of reach. 

echo maker

i love to cull mirrors where
there aren't any. an echo is not
a voice but the return. at this stage
of capitalism, everything is an echo
in horror & in glory. 
the street an echo of the wagon road
& the wagon road the echo 
of the foot path & the foot path 
the echo of the deer trails like veins
still through the mountains. each time
a story is told it changes. gains beetles
& loses the moon. drop shipping halos.
i see an ad for a house that comes
in a cookie tin. a lover the shape of a cloud. 
we run until the package driver 
tracks us down to steal our lungs.
there are echos in my organs & echoes
in the garden boxes my father prepares
for spring. still the feathers from the old corn.
an echo is always about direction. the air
reminding us, "we have all been here before."
i see echoes of the worst history 
in this country always. we live in a land
ripe with echoes. an echo went left unheard 
has no choice but to beat the ground
like a gong. it is getting worse. the rain
tastes like legs. when i open the mail
i expect arsenic. i expect a letter that states
i am no longer a creature, just an echo 
of a desire we all have but only some swallow.
my car, the a horse echo towards a road
thick & endless. the ocean somewhere
an echo of the gill times. i wonder if it is us
who are responsible for the echoes or if 
they are an element like earth or fire or water.
if i am the echo maker in sheep's clothing. 
they sell knock-off fingernails at the mall kiosk
a letter in the mail claims i could find god. 
i lay in the bath & sing 
so that my voice echoes all around me.
let the stars knock on the window all night. 

frankenstein's monster's monster's monster

my dad does a frankenstein 
in the basement with the table saw 
& a lightning storm in his pocket.
he leaves the door open a crack.
who hasn't been the victim of 
some man's ambition? i cut
the "create" out of "creativity" 
& there is just a pair of dad shoes
(you know what they look like)
on the floor like dead birds. 
he thinks that no one knows
what he does down there in his dungeon
but i have always seen  
my father. he is like a mirror.
what came first the father or 
the son? the answer: the daughter. 
on my best days i get to be the monster.
i get to share my name with
a man who loves to chase. i rise
like a bouquet of spoons. he takes me
out to the science people who say,
"that is not a daughter" to which 
he says, with pride, "of course not,
it is my monster." i am third generation. 
none of us belong here. these are
not our ears. the battlefields opened
so that we could borrow enough fingers
to make a fist. my father was made just like me
& his father too. frankenstein's monster's
monster's monster. we don't actually
remember anymore when it started.
if we have a frankenstein or if he is
just an idea we use to hold on
to one another. when the air is warm,
he opens the red double basement doors.
a halo's like gold. the sound of a saw. 
he builds boxes & stacks them
to the ceiling. each of them empty. 

ear candles in the blue dark

it was a horrible time when i went shopping
for ear candles. the moon was on fire.
i watched babies fall from the sky.
tried to pick up their pieces. handed them
to passersby. no one was okay but 
we all went to work. i would have
to look for my eyes, the little beetles,
each morning because they would crawl
to hide beneath the cool belly of stones 
in the yard. sometimes i had to spent
the whole day with just one eye. 
it was good enough. it was more than some
people had. i saw an ad on the hungry machine
advertising ear candles. i watch a woman
lay sidewards as a man lit her. i have
on occasion put a wick in my mouth
& used my body like wax. this was different.
a little exorcism. ear wax plumbed & released.
i imagined how good it would feel
to have someone removed for one instead
of added. i watched videos. i went to stores.
i bought hundreds of them. blue ear candles
& organic ear candles & laughing ear candles.
of course, before i did i googled more
about them. ear candles do not remove anything.
in fact, sometimes the wax from the candle
drip down into your skull. i wanted to weep.
i had wanted them so badly. in the morning 
before the first blush of the sun
i put one in between my lips & walked
like a zombie through the fallow corn field. 
nothing left me. instead, i was filled with
the sound of a drone overhead. my shadow 
danced around me. i still tried just one ear candle.
closed my eyes. pretended that it saved me.  

mountain ache

the truth is i miss talking to the rocks. 
i miss how your calls dropped like
boulders tumbling down the side
of the steep cliffs. i always imagined
falling when i lived there. it was comforting
to exist in a place characterized by rupture
& cracks. the mountains around here
are wonderfully old. ancient knees buckled
long before anyone in my family 
grew wings. there are legends of bird people
in my lineage. a grandfather who trades
one mountain to another. his feathers
on the closet floor. i come from a family
of men who fly just out of reach. 
the mountain has a gender that only
asks questions. refuses answers. how lovely
it is to be unknown. to have your bones smoothed
by the rain's persistence. by the legs
of animals who wish you find you.
these days i  get caught up in hunting stop signs.
on the mountain, the land demanded attention.
i am convinced this is why around here
people butcher the land as if it were 
a rack of ribs. they suck the fat. they never share.
this year they leveled another thicket
to build ugly expensive houses with white doors. 
i can still see the mountain in the distance.
you don't call me anymore & so there is
nowhere for your voice to fall. 
on my ugliest days i consider walking back.
calling you until you pick up. i want to ask you
questions you can't answer. what other life
was there for us? when you sleep on a mountain
does a part of you hope to takes you? 

the christian store

on wayward saturdays 
my mom used to drive us to the christian store
to pick out toys with crosses on them.
it was mostly plastic. jesus rubber ducks
& jesus bouncy balls & jesus statues 
of every possible size. holy water vessels
& in the back a rack of priest garments.
i always wanted to try them on. i considered
that if all else failed maybe i could become holy. 
the thought of living alone in a house beside a church
appealed to me & my budding otherness. 
we often went to the store after i received a sacrament
because they had beanie babies for most sacraments.
bears with communion wafers embroidered 
into their feet. it is strange the make-shift rituals
we consume in this country. there was very little
that i would consider holy about the store now.
i imagine the items arriving in bulk.
plastic bags of crosses. statues in packing peanuts.
as a kid, i loved to amass as many little 
objects as i could. i did not feel divine or safe
but i believe that those statues of being were maybe just
within reach. i am not catholic now but i do
have to admit that confirmation felt
mystical in a way i have seldom recreated.
we all wore white robes. my hair was 
still wet from a shower. my face, round
like a fresh moon. it was a specific moment.
the oil on my forehead. i did not want
to wash that night & lose whatever tether
i felt to a fleeting glory. the trip to the christian store
the next weekend felt different. some of my hunger
for objects had waned. i was in sixth grade & my body
asked for more than i knew how to give it. 
we still bought a bear. this one red to represent 
the sacrament. it did not feel the same as the ones
before. i think it rained on the way home. 
i don't think we ever went back. 

attempts at holy water

when i learned about holy water
i started to hoard it. i had seen 
that everything precious runs out. 
the drought will take the sky.
cupboards will go hollow & sing.
you & your father with eat 
candy spearmint leaves in the car
until your teeth ring. 
i had a flask i would fill 
from the baptismal fountain
at the back of the church. 
then, i started to resort to mason jars
& water bottles. stacked them all up
in rows on my shelf. blessed hands
& felt nothing. i began to devise
a downpour. a way to soak myself 
in the holy water in the hopes
that it might make me feel freed
of some unnamed snare. my body was 
growing into some kind of snake.
i spent evenings on my belly 
slipping between holes in the world.
when it rained, i would go out
to get soaked. forget the vessels 
with the church holy water. joined
a pouring out of the august sky.
some slit divine artery. my bones 
as wet drums. i wanted the rain 
to never stop to become a salamander 
on the humid moss-bearded land. 
i would return inside. peel 
each piece of clothing from my skin
& lay them on the floor. 
whatever i was trying to get rid of
has never left. instead, has become
like a gargoyle in me. rain down my back.
i still keep jars of water on the windowsill. 


 

mouth museum

i only visit the mouth museum alone.
i like to carry a bag full of toothpicks 
& work when no guards are looking.
some of the mouths are alive & others are 
alive but in the past. 
there are mouths from the old world
& mouths from species that no longer
sing into the night. i stand inside coelacanth jaws.
they tell a story about the deep. i nest
in beaks, one by one. dodo & albatross.
thinning to a string to fit in the kiwi bird maw. 
the museum is often empty. when i see
another guest i know they are like me.
a person whose mouth betrays them.
every once in awhile there is a theft.
someone taking a new mouth 
all for themselves. i am not to be trusted
& so i have occasionally tried one on.
i walked into the bathroom wearing a bear.
i scared myself. all those teeth. how do 
they kiss? once, on the ride home from the museum
my partner called me & asked if i had ever
considered going on a silent retreat 
at a buddhist temple. i explained that i am
not buddhist though i think i might be
better off if i was. really, i am just a tongue 
turning the pages a script written 
on roast beef. some of the mouth in the museum
do not have tongues. i will bend down
& lend them mine. they'll whisper 
what they taste. i feel terrible taking it away.
there have been nights i stayed there too.
slept inside (you guessed it) the manatee mouth.
i felt briefly peaceful. like the world had
enough rice. i boil water. i boil teeth. 
i always go alone but maybe one day
i'll take someone with me. i have only seen
two people there together once.
they were not lovers. they were enemies.
they had come to put on carnivore mouths 
& devour each other. i did not stick around.