animal crossing fireworks 

it's november & the world is tired
of its mistakes. my brother & i 
talk on the phone about 
going to sleep for a whole year
to see where that arrives us.
he's just bought tea cups. he sets 
the vessels in a line on the windowsill.
soon we will both be home for thanksgiving 
where we will pass the some worries
back & forth & call that siblinghood. 
i am laying on my back 
on the matted lavender carpet 
trying to keep talking to him
while i video game dream 
about animal crossing. 
my sandwich-thick blue DS. 
it's dim glow in the dark 
of my childhood bedroom. shutting
the music off. silent miniature town. 
shake a tree for peaches.
a mouthful of fish. 
butterfly glinting in a jar
on my desk. nothing dies 
inside a digital. i go
into the game settings & change 
that early winter night 
to july 4th. i move the time ahead too.
wake up in a refreshed town. 
ready for fireworks. cross my legs.
wish for futures full
of stone & river. the fireworks
red & yellow glow. a promise
of malleable time. i can tell myself
soon it will be july & the air
will notice me again. 
i ask my brother how long
winter will be & he lists 
the months. sits at his desk.
glances out his own slightly fogged window.
without me, my town is alive.
my town is august & june &
morning in april. my town is
harvesting tulips. oribiting
a may pole. on my last walk of the night
i check on the stars like you might check
on a sibling. 
they are there. 

how to repair a vein / good girl genesis 

the grandmother comes
to help my root cellar. eats a staircase.
uses her nose to cut walls
like a shark fin. what do you know
about heredity? about what is 
slide from bone to bone &
from blood to blood? she drums 
her long fingers on the window
to signal she wants to be let in.
i close my eyes. we must never
see the grandmother lest all our genes 
come undone. i'm already 
unraveling enough. leave a thimble
on the porch. collect
stray strings for her workings.
i dream of a grandmother gift--
that one day she'll find favor with me
& leave me a new door i can sneak
into summer with. warm knob.
on the other side of a fire
i'll be a girl again. 
in my teeth i'll clutch a wrench.
spend all night mending a vein.
how am i supposed to be 
a child still with all this glass?
i cut my feet every day on 
the sharp edges of my desires.
a tree grows from the sink 
& spits pollen into the air.
rain washes the windows over & over
to some unknown end. 
an adult tooth falls out 
& i flush it down the toilet
so that the grandmother 
doesn't see i'm deteriorating. 
she does her puzzles on the ceiling:
picture of a mid-day park. picture
of a baby's hand. i say a prayer
to her-- tell her i'm trying
very hard. i knit my own vessels.
i drink only water blessed 
by a planet. still i am sinking 
in the floor boards. 
she braids my hair while i sleep. 
a rope to clutch. a trap door 
into my skull where the rivers 
do nothing but weave. 
i talk to the grandmother,
i say "will you tell me a story
about when you were 
only a sliver?" 

sickness

i would do anything for another fragment 
of fig stories & bare shoulders.
my teeth are cluttered book shelves.
i cup my ribs in the palm of my hand
like a little sparse clam. most mornings 
my fingers are their own instruments.
a piano chews on my gloom with only 
its black keys. i want to run 
like a marble down the big hill. 
please give me another elbow 
to swing from. i take my vertebrae off 
one at a time like harmonica vestibules. 
what is wrong with me what is wrong with me what
is wrong with me.
even my lamp is a doctor. even my 
windows are mirrors. let me tell you 
a song about when i used to have 
muscles. it starts with a clattering 
of kitchen pans & ends with 
just a picture of jupiter. 
i eat hunched over, back bent 
like a wailing flower-neck.
please. i just dream of 
thick afternoons with no pain.
early mornings where my body
used to greet me. my skin is my own
lost lover. a sheet pinned to 
a clothes line. rain coming down
on a november day. a veil across
a doorway. i take a clothes pin
through my collar bone
to hold myself bound. where
will i carry my three spheres 
of motion today? an orbit from 
kitchen to mailbox from bed 
to light bulb. all i crave
is a melon mouth 
& a seed to appear beneath 
my tongue. who should 
i send in my place? who is going 
to plumb my dark for what's left.
only me with a flashlight 
& a half-size phillips-head screwdriver.
i get on my knees. i get on
my back. open myself
music-box wide. hear 
that little metal tune as it says
what is wrong what is wrong what

 

exoskeletons

i cut a hole in your face
for the birds to come out.
first the little song birds
then a raven & a vulture.
we were all garbage that night,
leaving our fingernails on each other's
windowsills. i caught a fairy 
under a water glass
& told no one. left it there
until it turned into a smudge.
who will we trust with our
puppy-dog stories. i sold my teeth
for a few dimes. my pocket
had a trap door & i scattered
all my gun powders away.
the sand is aching 
with skeleton-thoughts.
oh that moon shadowed us
like cutouts. i caught your birds
& kept them in the closet
where they writhed & asked
for a key to the basement.
i thought... what could a bird
want with all that dirt?
you eluded your own mouth
so we talked writing to each other
on a chalk board. light bulbs 
turned tulip. all that pink.
what could i name knuckle for.
we ate shaved ice 
from the floor. i told you
it's not that clean but you 
waved me off. after everything.
after everything. fuck dishes.
fill the sink with syrup.
wash out feet from the lip
of the tub. your ripe talons.
my fresh paws. the fairy isn't dead
don't worry. i saw her awake 
on the other side of the window.
she was smashing gnats.
what a good creature. 
the basement instrument rattles.
i can see you. all of you.
your turning inside out. 
a bone. a plastic slide. 
a soup ladle & a sweater.
all glimmering with pink sputter.
remnants of the birds.
our fingers whittled down
to the bud. 

finishing 

i can't remember the last time 
but i know it was on your bed
lit by a lonely string 
of wall-pinned christmas lights. i was trying
to give myself over in pieces. here is my leg
here is my hair & my teeth. i instructed myself,
trying to relearn a threadbare need. 
i said "take off her shirt" i said 
"pull free her belt." even coming apart 
becomes a sequence or, in the best circumstances 
a ritual. in the kitchen fruit bowl, 
clementines bruised each other. skin to skin.
mothered by a lonely apple. 
when i moved to new york, i said "all the fruit
is smaller here." we grocery shopped together
with separate carts at first & then the same.
your window looked out at the grey brick
of the building next door 
& it barely even betrayed the weather.
instructional conversation. "yes like that."
"can we switch positions?" "now." "less." all the while
i wanted to ask if she felt 
as strange as i did-- like i was piloting  
a ghost plane into an old chasm--right 
where i knew the plane would crash.
can you love someone & no longer know
what to make of your bodies?
closed my eyes. heard the smell
of her oil. clawed my nails into her back
as if she were the side of a cliff
outside it was raining or midday 
or night-- deep lamplit night.
an ambulance singing. a shout. 
her bedroom getting larger for once.
counting the poetry books
on her far shelf. the fruit we won't eat--
can't eat soon enough, in the kitchen
harboring infant flies soon
to hatch & waltz. when we were done 
i kissed her shoulder & she kissed mine.
sat at my desk in my room
with no window-- my clothes feeling 
unknown & desperate on my skin. 

pho

my boyfriend used to float me in the broth
between cubes of tofu & green scallion ringlets.
he'd take his fork & stirred the soup
like a fortune. so much about having a lover
is about watching them eat. i can still
conjure his mouth wide. patchy teeth.
pale-ish tongue. a kiss soon
spiked with siracha & beef.
the noodle shop on the other side of town
had a water fall made of christmas lights 
& a television playing a koi fish pond
on repeat. we ate there a few times.
i loved pho. the soup a little garden.
a pool i could look into & see no reflection.
ceramic white spoon. damp chopsticks.
at the bottom of the noodles
maybe some escape. a tiny trap door.
a little latch. he sometimes stood up.
circled the table 
& pressed his still soup warm lips to my neck.
me & him were the only people
in the whole restaurant. i always wished
it were crowded. bustling. more couples
at every little wooden table. his hand 
touching my knee. 
him, pointing to the broth
& begging me to slip inside.
no my dress will get stained. no 
i'm hardly edible today. 
all the while the loop-bound koi 
did their dances between each other.
i always gave in at some point.
he'd say, no one is watching
& if you can't do this for me
how can you say you love me?
i would save my crying 
for once i was submerged.
let myself shed rich tangy broth
between a soft mushroom 
& a bright orange carrot disk.
little fragment i was
looking up at a boy through
the miso murk. now, when i eat pho
i dig for her just to be sure
she's not still down there
hiding between tangled noodles.
cilantro on her forehead
like a crown. 

approaching rabbits 

not enough fuel to get home. not 
enough songs to fill stomachs. not enough
teeth to chew down the tree.
the bridge will collapse soon
so each passing is a gamble & the river
has gone too long without cradling someone home.
all of us in the woods now
like bare mouth children.
once, we were rabbits & 
at the slightest movement
we scattered like wedding rice.
found crevasses to wriggle into.
sprouted brief wings & discovered perches.
the birds judged us for our dirt-bound fears.
we should have given up soil
so long ago. i always come back
to sites of my own almost-annihilation.
a stump. a plastic slide. swing
slung over the bar. 
eat the onion grass even though it's bitter.
have you ever run for survival?
or lust? or danger?
no shoelaces, just grass up to your neck?
all us rabbits disappearing 
from each other's sight. street 
tying itself into a knot. you aren't 
going anywhere, at least not tonight.
what are you willing to wait out?
i have loved boys who fed me sand
& said it was sugar-- who fed me rabbit
& promised it wasn't my own leg. you are
the only rabbit in the universe.
soft & consumable. skin prying off
to reveal a moth. skin peeling 
free & here is a little boy-girl
in the leaves. pressing acorns to 
his-her eyes. make me a tree soon.
i want to hear a car horn 
or a chain saw or a man's voice singing.
& have no way to run. 

 

in the arcade we ask for dangers

bowl of blinking light & 
songs of new neon roads.
get in a broken blue. shed
a fragment.
we point fingers at pixel men
& smashed the heads of clowns
hiding in their borrows. late january,
gloves crumpled & waiting in pockets.
claw machine dreaming for us.
a coin becomes encounter.
gamble with moons. bartering
for wheel & knuckle. 
the bathrooms there 
kissed each other.
screen glow of a new candelabra.
the photo booth posing for us.
here is your memory new born 
& still pink.
three pictures. put you face
back on. a child running with a knife.
winter eating the soles of our shoes.
prize is a never the truth.
just a fraction of it.
what is 1/2 of a real full planet?
now what is a 1/4 of 
your nightly desire? 
pocket of flash. thumb 
on the tongue of another gun.
i want to keep you in this game
where we try to win each other
stuffed mirages. i say 
tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow 
& you focus on the trophy. 
give me a new glister.
take me home in plastic & package.
how much does your 
disco ball hum? what are we 
going to do with flirting planet?
nothing, nothing at all for now
because there is a ramp 
to run. you take off your knees.
mine turn into headlights.
candy in the blood stream.
sink in my 30 second timer.
you've lost. we've won. 
count jupiters. a stuffed boy.
water gun wound. don't ever
take me home. 

i want to be covered in lichens

to lay still in praise 
of dead limb & languish. 
a frill is a frill no matter 
sewn or sprouted. a queer in nature.
find me overgrown. desire & ivy. 
green bondage. tethered to another dirt.
on the trail, rachel tells me 
bright green lichens 
mean the air is clean. 
i breathe clean air 
with my fat butterfly lungs
as she goes looking for rocks. 
are the lichens resting or waiting?
is green earned or discovered?
entangled, i dream myself 
thick with foliage. a winter 
to taste blue. a spring to pageant wave 
at hikers & bears. october
was supposed to save me. all the bugs
alive & asleep & alive & asleep. 
lichens as eyelids. lichens 
as doors. my past self strolling
in a lichen dress. oh ghost! 
are you always carrying a stone?
one single lichen on my arm. 
i ask it to spread faster. i need
this right now. take me far away
from all heaters & the ceilings 
& the teeth. a lichen armor?
no, a lichen soul. 
i can see the air. 
oh queer trees & false stumps, 
i know your secrets because
they are the same as mine. 
where you keep the heels. where you 
plummet into red & send love letters
to your fathers. where can i 
plant myself in your midst?

in a lover's bathroom

the mirror asks only 
yes/no questions. are you 
going to wash your face? 
is 'boy' a state of mind or 
a body part? do you love him
or are you just wishing
you loved him? i turn my heart 
inside out & shake looking
for a quarter to press
between thumb & finger. 
life is full of brief privacies.
all my clothes are too loose
& too tight. if i return 
to his living room
& there he is sofa-waiting like a doll
what will i do 
with all my longing? 
should you tell another person
you want them to cradle you? that you want
them to use your body as kindling. 
a mouth to me is never 
just a mouth. i portal all these boys.
walk through their teeth
to where i jigsaw them
into a future where we grow
old as trees. my iPhone is charging.
i should go home soon. 
are my nails too long? 
what will he do when i leave?
will he come to this room
& undress & think of us together
in his bed sleeping, pouring
a whole afternoon. will he stare
in the mirror too long or 
not long enough? i am becoming
a sticky note soul.
i want to fragment myself--
leave a foot in every location.
the wind outside is made of 
gills & rattles the world.
do not make me leave. do not 
make me leave. i will sleep 
in the tub if i have to.   
then in the morning
we can resume somehow.
trade the love stories
we're writing about each other.
a penny on the floor.
stares up at me with its 
one copper eye.