husband in a jar

the government-ordered 
love story is a photograph 
in the sink. i buy you flowers
from costco & by the time
i get home they're furious bees.
i also get angry when winter
comes to make soil of me. 
i thought the husband would be
like a snow globe. shake & feel
transported. instead, it is like
a jar of pickled eggs. beet purple.
he has nice hair i guess in the grand 
scheme of men. i try not to think
too much about what he is for.
instead, i go to sleep to make myself
dream about an ex. not in a "i miss you"
way but in a "remember the horror
of our loneliness." the worst relationships
are the ones that make you feel
more alone than when you're alone.
i feed the husband fish food & sometimes
a leftover cookie or something.
he is not satisfied. i was not made
to satisfy men. especially not a husband.
my first ex had so many ideas
of what i could be. he made me stand
on a wedding cake for years. the cake rotted.
birds came but there i was still
without any words left. i think the husband
is not so bad actually. i call the
official hotline to ask if it would be
appropriate to move him into a terrarium.
they scold me for thinking about myself.
the thing about being feminine is that
no matter how much you try to steady
your voice, they'll be able to tell on the phone.
no terrarium i guess. i put the jar on 
the nightstand & he whimpers for me
to let him crawl into bed. i say, "no. i did
not ask for this." the curfew has arrived
& everyone is supposed to be in bed. he says,
"i love you." the joy officer peers in through
the window & waits for me to say it back.
my husband knows that i do it out
of obligation but still he hangs onto those words.
in the morning i will dress him & myself.
make us food. he will hum the sun alive like
a mourning dove. in that moment 
i will love him. a siren comes & goes.
his shoes by the door will get bigger & bigger.

rose water

believe me, the sink is bleeding
like a dandelion wound.
not milk but rose water. i am 
drinking flowers until 
all i can see is your big pink mailbox.
i wrote you letters when the world
was a pile of bones. i would go 
only at night to sift through 
the wreckage. the truth is that 
i love being alone. the way your own
silence can wrap you like deli meat.
wax paper. a petal of ham.
once my mother came in the window
at night. she said, "i believe you 
about the sink." i was not sure 
if i could trust her but we got to the glasses
& we drank long & wild. we drank
until our eyes were tunnels. 
we drank until my father was 
a hole in the sky. in my dream i tell her
everything about him. he buys 
enough wars to fill the yard. 
she tells me, "i used to sometimes escape
into a hydrogen balloon." i become
afraid of fire. no more hindenberg.
i have seen enough skies burn down.
the sunset is floral. we milk it into 
tall glasses. i used to run all the way
up the mountain to a rose bush 
planted decades ago by the ghosts.
there, a faucet & dishes. something
to do to pass the bleeding. my father
in the shower, waiting with nothing
but his eyes on. i try to work up 
the courage to bathe him. the rose water 
steam will maybe remind us of 
that one garden off the highway.
the one with the god statues & 
a wooden ark. 

mad woman

i keep my mad woman in 
a little space ship. we go to pluto
to be forgotten. her fists are made
of video games. her teeth, rubies. 
she is my favorite parts of myself.
i visit her but it takes twenty-seven years.
each time she is bent into more
& more of a spiral. she loves to eat books.
she dreams of being a mother to something
wilder than herself. in the building times
where i am walking around like 
a zoo, i think of her. i see her in her
little ice garden on the blue surface
of a distant mirage i want to take her
to the mall. i want to let her break 
a huge window in a death machine.
just one would be enough for us to be whole. 
i do not know her as deeply as i should
after all these years. i don't know what kind
of cereal she would want to eat. i don't know
which sound sooth her. all i have done 
is banish her from my flesh. give her
sporadic kindnesses like a ring pop 
or a milkshake. she seldom indulges. 
just stares at me like a wolf in the dark.
she rarely speaks but when she does, it is critical.
"you think you can leave me," she said.
i did not reply. of course i thought i could.
isn't that what we all do? try to escape
the self who wants too much? 
only once did i lash out at her. it was 
a boiling time. i had no money in my account.
she chided me & i said, "at least i have
a credit card." she laughed long & fearless.
i felt so small. how did i become so small?
the planet is slowly shrinking. one day
she will come home. i do not know what
i will do with her. maybe we will finally reconcile. 
maybe i will run with her until i am nothing
but bone & wind. 

deer who are not there

i find their footprints.
follow them into the dark. 
you are calling me nonstop.
we do not ever rid ourselves
of one another. a first love is like
a broken sundial. i was talking to you
in the wild rain. the deer were there too.
are always there & not there.
when a deer dies too soon her ghost lasts
as long as the earth. i find them devouring
ghost corn at the cross roads. i sleep
for seven days & seven nights. the land 
asks who i am & i explain that i 
have never known. the pangea 
of my heart. not a fracture but a 
slow separation. you have my mountain
on your face. the deer, like soldiers 
in the moon-cast shadows. i eat nothing.
become a deer & then a deer ghost too.
there is a skeleton which i have watched
disperse on the side of the road. 
first the coyotes came & then the foxes 
& then the gardener & then the birds
& the bugs & the teenagers who drive drunk
through the field roads. litter their little bottles
in the crooks of the path's neck. that deer
tries her best to follow her body. a rib carried
to the creek. a tooth on my necklace.
i feed the bones when i remember to.
a pocket of goji berries. a splash of soda. 
we all get what we can. i have a highway life.
most of the time all i can do is love 
like a gas station. come here. be a deer 
in the distance. follow the light.
i almost have what you need. 

i buy you a cow

we bring her to the moon. tell her to drink
until time stops. i have been hungry 
in the old ways. persimmon tongued 
without enough sugar. i was wrong to think
there is a life for us behind some door. still i pull them
& behind none are cows. instead,
there are coat hangers & copy machines.
people sitting around a board room table
making choices about the future of water about
how & where our hearts will be useful fruit. 
my ghost has a hollow she goes to when she
needs to be dangerous. we cut down a tree 
& find a cow inside. we open the crawlspace
& discover my father sleeping there. he had
been looking for the moon in all the small places.
the gone time is here. it is far too late. 
all there is left to do is suck on a crab apple
& harvest the stars. i used to ask you if you thought
i was a boy or a girl. now i ask, "do you think i am
the cow or you?" i know it is me. i am holding 
a whole future in my guts. the grass shrinks 
in autumn. the dampening of the wings at night.
soft seeds. we turn on the oven & pretend we are
about to eat something. open all the windows.
cows come from every direction. i say,
"we are home." you are delighted. we find a boarder 
& turn it into a jump rope. the office buildings 
have no cows. up the street they are talking
to money. they are holding money. they are 
digging in the field for money. they find all of it.
they have no cows. someone of them turn their
loved ones into money. so much of it. 
still no milk. no moon. our first cow, full 
of so much light. gibbous in her irises. 
she asks us, "how long until they find us there?" 

baby picture

when i'm not looking my
baby pictures turn into photos
of worms. it is really for the best.
i do not want to be small. 
the grape vine tells me i am 
on many lists. some good & some horrible.
sometimes i wonder if i stop taking
my meds if maybe the baby pictures
would return & there might be
a river that returns between me now
& the me who had more eyes. i do not know
if it miss feeling or i miss the kind
of art it gave me. in some ways i am lucky.
we didn't take a lot of baby pictures 
of my siblings. i have the most dedication.
even a little book recording my "firsts."
first national tragedy. first fire moon.
first neighbor running in the street
without eyes. one christmas we watched
this factory burn down. it used to be
right across from our house. i remember
a window full of babies. i was always 
trying to tell them, "come here, 
i have spearmint!" they couldn't get out.
if i had my way i would want my pictures
to show someone else. maybe someone 
who stays a worm forever. gets to be devoured
by a really good bird. one with feathers 
bright & endless. i do have one picture
of myself as a pilot. i am in an airplane
above the town. i point & there is the diner.
i point & there is the quarry where 
years ago another plane went down. 
an umbilical cord of smoke. i do not know
what the obsession is with going up 
in the sky when we die. i am looking forward
to the dirt. to joining my sibling worms. 
wriggling the soil. the sun, like a face
above a night. sometimes they'll offer me
the photos to take home. i say yes 
but leave them on the porch. i would rather
not see how much i have been devoured.
i like to think of each day as if i am waking up
as a fresh animal. all my hearts like
a rosary down my body. again & again,
here i am all worms. 

hover board

i want to be an animal.
i always have. in the summer
as a kid, i went barefoot as many
places as i could. the sun. the moon.
the roof. my father's back. 
a gun barrel my neighbor would point
at the stars in the hopes of bringing
his wife  home. the field dogs
slipping behind the curtain 
& back. i read on my little portal 
that there is going to be a mandatory 
hover board training school. we will 
all be above the ground. slowly
we will move into the sky. grow meat
from tiny tubes. they are saying 
it is for our own good but it is really
because a hover board is better than
a horse by which i mean good for
war. good for money gods & their
tunnels dug deep in the earth.
i think i will be bad at this next phase
of horrible. i might scramble down
to where the last dinosaurs are playing
pinball in the dark. i love the old machines
with the xylophone sounds. maybe if i
study the dinosaurs legs i can get
my belly to the earth. i can walk across
the bright language until i am talking
to the trees again & the flowers admit
their breaking names. i know how
these things go. eventually, the hover board
will seem so old that i'll end up one day
driving one without even remembering
when it is i gave in. i am hoping i am 
a dinosaur & not a bug. i do not want 
to survive too much. i would like
my bones to mean something to whatever
ghost finds me. i hope they crouch in
the dirt. i hope they do not wear gloves 
& that my grease makes the sound of a star. 

a dozen eggs

the chickens love to eat 
their own eggs. beaks dripping
with yolk. the sun, throws
here autumn tongue down.
you always tell me i should
not let them feast like this. 
you want the eggs harvested
in the woven basket by the door.
washed in the sink until they are
smooth as polished stones. the chickens 
are not wise creatures. they pluck
what they must from the tall grass
around the yard. a grub. a worm.
a frog. i learn their voices. the youngest ones
who have yet to start laying 
speak with a chattering softness
that the older ones do not have. 
what shape does their own yolk
make in their mouths? does it sound
like a return or a swelling? 
sometimes we will find eggs hidden 
throughout the yard. a cluster beneath
the sycamore. a pile in the hay hutch. 
when they are through, scattered shells
lay all broken window in the dirt. 
i support their strange celebration.
a feast of the body taking back her suns. 
we hardly ever collect a dozen eggs. 
old cartons half-mouthed in the windowsill. 
i rake their coop. they peer at me, their intruder. 
the rooster, with his eyes like dream doors,
watches over the flock. 

flower melt 

last year a funeral in the attic. 
i call my aunt who does not live
there anymore. her number is given
to someone else who therefore gets
a piece of her life. i planted flowers by the road
& they are starting to order fancy jewelry 
on amazon. i tell them, "we are trying
to not buy from there anymore."
the flowers will be ghosts soon. they have
nothing to lose. sometimes i am a flower
& sometimes i am a chainsaw. my father
visits unannounced. it is always december
in my family. the precipice of some kind
of momentous ending. i am a lineage breaker. 
i put flowers in my hair & accept
that their bells are full of bugs. 
my aunt had a cloud of hair. sometimes
she would rain. the summer i lived 
with her & her sister was full of ghosts. 
standing in the back yard when the moon
would not stop ringing. why couldn't we
keep the trees? they knew us. they yielded 
fruit for us. how could they become 
someone else's trees? the carpet full of
melting flowers. i bought a wax husband 
when i lived in the mountains. the cold ate holes
through the walls until i was barefoot in 
a field of flowers. my aunt lost her fiance 
decades before i knew her. he was driving
a shiny car when the world filled with flowers. 
loss is a potato. the root & the feast. 
my arms in the soup finally. the flowers 
are giving their last go. puckered faces.
soon the mornings will frost. my aunt will 
wander out into the yard. her trees flowers
in someone else's hair. 

times i have lied to my doctor

winter parking lot. the sun behind
a frosted window. yes i am breathing.
yes i sleep at night. no i do not have
a bomb behind my eyes. no i do not
have nightmares any more. yes my sex life
is full of flowers. i eat enough protein.
there is a stray cat who i feed. who i invite
inside my house. who stands on two legs
& weeps with me. when my phone rings
i always pick it up. it is never god
though i want it to be. no i am not
thinking of an elevator shaft. yes 
i pee a regular amount. no i am not feeling
like there is a cloud of knives perched
right outside my life. no my father 
never hit me. no my father is not
feeding a ghost from the palm of his hand. 
yes my body is doing what it is supposed to.
i have a neighbor who i talk to every day 
& we trade sounds of the fields we adore.
cicada. lawn mower. field plane. the drones
do not alarm me. it is not my birthday.
yes i fasted before the blood test. no i do not
have enough sugar. yes the medication
is working. yes i do not have anything else
i want to fix. no i have never pulled my car over 
outside of a new development & tried to remember
what the field looked like. work is going well.
i have so much love in my hair. i do not
need to check my bank account. we will 
figure it out if the government is listening.
no they will not take everything. yes i am sure. 
outside the haze thickens to a broth.  

i see the doctor in his car after. he eats a hoagie
with the window cracked.