boy smell

a brick flies through the window.
attached to it is a note
reading, "i want nothing to do
with summer." it was 7th grade
& all the boys were playing soccer
with a stolen planet. i was not invited
so i sat on the ledge of the playground
& watched. boy shoving boys shoving 
boys. proxy dirt taste. soil foot.
grass stained knee. 
the pharmacy is neon glowing.
i want to be automatic-doored
into a new life. before alchemy,
i craved scent. a cedar staircase.
a wintered forest where all the trees 
are legs towering from the earth.
the grace of ankles. 
but what can i say about 
the veil? my curtain-loose skin. 
somewhere a venue empties
of all its boys. somewhere double doors
are being used for evacuation.
in a field of tall grass,
i slip into a pack of boys
crawling on all fours. we are feral
& happily so. i want to be 
discovered. unmasked. sandalwood 
& fear. give me a taste of muscle.
bone as buoy. a single red line
crosses town. boys on one side
others on the other. 
what am i supposed to do
with this hair? if i cut it off
i'll no longer be mistaken.
metal or blood. aluminum clot.
men's legs. it is november
& somehow i am no different.
the golden rod kisses herself
& dreams of masculinity.
i burn a manly incense stick
& look up at the clouds.
all of them shaped 
like teeth.  

content creation in the apocalypse 

i'm going to live stream the surgery.
wave hello from the other side 
of a zero. what folded in half
to make you? a shoe is just a shoe
unless it's a heel then it's
an motion towards the immortal.
when i can't breathe air
i settle for water or milk. 
face down in the bath tub machine.
a bubble of joy will be available 
only with the bonus code.
i'm waiting for the upload now.
i have waited my whole life
for the upload. every night 
i thank god for forward facing cameras.
how else would i know
the right pose? here is how
i maneuver my fat. here is how
i conceal my fears. caption 
this dream. the doctor is removing 
each organ & holding up to the camera.
can you see it can you see it?
what are we going to do 
with our wayward feed? replay
the catastrophe. my heart
has eighteen views. please
open me wider than my spine will allow.
i want to vessel this day 
so deep it becomes only mine.
between mirror & camera & 
capture are different stages 
of grief. does my face really warrant
this kind of truth? i'm probably
just going to shut this off.
throw an off-screen massacre
on the elevator towards tomorrow.
i sleep in the narrowest shaft
between minutes. no no i will sleep
inside an ice bassinette
waiting for complete the collapse. 

meat substitute

ham petals open under knife.
a heat lamp to keep us alive.
i could separate myself
into three round white eggs if i had to.
none of them will bloom but a mother
will keep them warm. will keep waiting.
what i want is a replacement 
for thighs & arms. stomach 
is a form of betrayal. 
there's secret fried skin on every body.
elbows. knees. a chicken runs
across the sky for the last time.
i am waiting for a new kind of meat
so i can feel sanctified.  
in the garden, soybeans chatter 
about how they'd replicate me:
a knot there. a lip there. 
more symmetry. 
farmer cuts the necks 
of his flock. a punishment is often
not intended as such. here i am
with bones. when will my meat
unfurl like a fraying banner
onto the plate of the right 
lover? replace "lover" with 
"father." father is always a stable boy.
he brushes the horses before
they are turned into glue or
chicken nuggets. 
everything is filler. 
the interval between pork
& chicken. i want a pure
skillet. only an inch of oil. 
this is what you do to me 
when we stand in the same room
& i can tell you want to ask
about my scars. this is where
they remove the meat & feed the dirt.
a pile of pig noises. your cow tongue 
turns over. leaf rustles 
then is gone. 

lalala

give me a hinge to swing shut on.
this is how you quiet a structure.
no husband singing in his closet no
boys playing Himalayas on the stairs.
at my coaxing the cat inverts his scream--
sends it back down his throat.
everyone, speaking to themselves
inside their mouths. we are blessed
with our own internal living rooms.
my sofa sprawled across my tongue.
a television on mute. infomercial
for a new vacuum. i need more implements.
i want to make a house where 
nothing speaks. not the wind or
pipes or walls. no ghosts dancing
above my head at night. no volumed
parakeets practicing diction
or a brother cradling a bass.
in the basement of my heart
i keep a pair of headphones.
lalala this is where 
i hush-reach & picture tongues
turning into slugs. next time it rains
i'll send my own to the back yard
with the sticky brown leaves.
he will thrive their & take with him
all the chatter chatter 
of a soup-willed boy. i'm pouring out
slowly enough to watch my own fingernails thin.
i'm holding my breath as i 
walk down the hall. letting the sink
croon his last rush. 
in the bathtub, i summon a quiet husband
with a quiet bath bomb.
a lover is never invented 
though often we don't realize
what we've done. i know one day
he'll hate me but tonight i need him
in my muzzled nest. there he goes
singing into soap bubbles.
cover my ear, waiting for them to pop.
is it too much to ask 
for a night of eating 
all language? i want to mean nothing
for once. i slip my husband
down the drain where now
i can still hear him humming. 

i was your 3D printer

out my mouth came a thimble
& a jam jar & a rocket ship.
what wouldn't i do to please
creator boy world? i wanted
to be the beautiful machine.
all girls are robots. what does
that make me? a hybrid design
thing creature. the distance
between "creator" & "creature"
lengthens every day. 
i look at circuit boards
& weep. my family tree glistens
in the deep web. a dark
search engine lurks & waits
to arrive me at a new bus station
where all the cyborgs are
delivered for their dreaming.
i want a wedding made of ice.
a boy & his gamer remote toggle.
make me a prettier avatar & 
then hook me in please i want 
to see me allotted amount 
of nonsense. we thrived 
once in the wire before
i worried about rings. it this true 
what they say about tech eating
itself at night. tomorrow 
i could be a mouse or 
even a light bulb. you could be
a paper boy selling broken tvs
from the curb. once i used
my skull for a monitor.
once we kissed until electricity 
short circuited our futures 
& the bed became an AI. 
what else would you like?
i want to materially please you.
i want you to look around
at all your objects & think
"there is nothing else
i could even think to ask for."
hot tub sex toy parade float.
my jaw unhinges to print
the best mirages. we bask 
in the advancements like snakes.
the sun hologrammed a long time ago.
i sit in your lap 
to worship illusion. 
you trace the parameter
of my mouth & praise its design. 

ghost

i put my face to fogged glass
to remember the stamp 
of my bones. knock 
from the other side of the walls
trying to shake the house
back to living. what kind of ghost
will you be? i always said i would
toss glasses from shelves 
& let the shatter keep me awake.
i wanted to be a disastrous thing.
a fear catalyst & family wrench. 
now, drowsy-wrapped
i lay down in the root cellar
& worship footsteps. i sleep 
on the blue bath mat & bask in shower steam.
then in the afternoon rest again
coiled like a cat in a patch of sun
on the living room floor. 
always said i would 
full-body apparition myself
at the top of a great staircase.
i wanted my picture taken
so that people Googling "ghost image" 
would find me & shut their laptop 
or say "that has to be fake."
but, i am just a haphazard entity.
i spend most days
quietly pantomiming myself.
here is how i used to open
the utensil drawer.
here is how i once dipped
a spoon into a bowl. 
this is the way i sometimes 
kissed boys in the dark of this house.
turn the lights off. turn the light
on. here is where my socks used 
to wait in pairs. a life 
is very few motions really.
a house has little distances to find.
did i really pass all my years 
with just feet & elbows 
& teeth? now i can at least
stand on the ceiling & on the walls.
i pretend to be a statue. an angel even. 
all the while the humans
perform mostly the same movements
as me. parallel machines.
clink of forks in the sink.
teeth meeting between mouths.
crouching on the floor. i send
a single chill down their spines.
just a draft they think.
my little thread of cold. 
 

anticipating winter

i'm growing down feathers.
white wisp layers. a willow tree
wallows in me & tells me 
to cut off all my hair before
i turn 25. this decade has
made good use of stirrups.
what if i skin myself? what if i
taxidermy my heart for a nice paper weight? 
something needs to keep the angels 
from getting away. not this time.
ball & chain. loose teeth.
spread me wide like a specimen.
i want to be further inspected for flaws. 
writing a temperature dial 
on your back, i ask you how warm 
you are going to keep me 
if i agree to letting you 
in my bed? your butterfly mouth.
the bees are hard to kill. they're woozy 
with their own death. 
tuck me in like a silver dollar
or a secret. the windows fog
with wanting. the sauna is only
an illusion. there is no such thing
as snow. what kind of jacket 
should i wear to the funeral?
have you ever noticed 
some leaves bleed from their trees?
stigmata never convinced anyone
of god. by the time it is warm again
what kind of gentle human 
will i be? let's get married
in the kindling. i just want
someone to harvest footprints with.
the bears are going to sleep.
i want to be like them. 

particular weight 

today i'd like to flicker less.
give me a more sturdy face
instead of a slideshow. yes, i meant
"more sturdy" not sturdier. 
english is untrustworthy at best
& i want as many words as i can get.
a family vacation
will not be available till the next
century. i collect rain drops 
& press them until they turn metal.
spare change. handful of dimes. what did i do
to deserve weight? long ago
were there mass-less people
whose every movement was sheerer
than stockings? raised with pew wood
i am prone to thinking of the world
as a series of punishments.
even the rain feels personal.
here is a statue of myself
made of soap. here is the shadow
of the last daffodil i pined for.
my dog is crying for me to please please
stop living for the unknowables.
her fears are more acute than mine like:
me: death..... her: death!
rain always seems a precursor 
to something more serious. a hunk
of sky. a glob of feathers. 
knotted socks. shards of glass.
what is coming?
practice crossing
my fingers. practice singing myself
out of reflections. i don't know
just how fixed in place i'd like to be.
maybe i was kidding myself.
all good things flicker. candle faces
& bird wings & even tongues.
it's hard to dispose of thumb tacs.
my heart ping-pongs from 
window to window hoping for 
a bowl of sun. i want to be
that airy--that wisp. 
human without the gravity.
flitting across my house
like nothing more than a breath.
no footprints to answer for.
not even a mask. the rain instruments 
into a drum beat. soaked through
to the fingernails. 
my particular delicateness 
escapes again into the water.

red mitten 

hole eaten through the top
where my finger kissed cold.
scratchy wool. black zigzag 
stitched on the back. we lost
the other half of the pair when i was eight.
dug through mounds of snow pants
& slithering scarves in the vestibule 
but never found it. still 
the red mitten made its rounds 
between children each year 
over top of other gloves & used
for alchemy.
my brothers & i took turns
using the red mitten to cradle
un-wordable desires. dead leaf crinkle.
dying tree in the yard. all our limbs 
thick with lichens. thimble & needle.
pin cushion afternoons. yulen echo.
the holiday season is always 
coming or going & it's exhausting.
will you purchase me 
a mitten full of necessities?
i want to live inside a quiet year 
where nothing at all is true
& catastrophe befalls no one. we sit 
& watch a first snow repeat.
i can't find the red mitten anymore
& i like to imagine it
sailing to a different planet.
slipping back in time again & again
in search of its other side. 
or, maybe, other objects
aren't as focused on pairings 
as we are. to be honest though.
what would i do with it?
if i found the mitten
i might leave it completely.
little vacant space ship. if only 
i could fit my whole self inside
& not just a fist. 

i wanted to sleep until the sky fell out of my mouth

i regret to tell you
i'm wintering in someone else's heart.
we are going down to the river
where the coal barges 
used to wish themselves
towards fire. an old flower's head 
rusts in the street & reminds me 
of those photographs we took
underwater. you as the fisherman
& me as the hook. mostly,
i am the implement. knife
to carve wood. tree trunks
drop to the sidewalk like rain
& we don't know how many more statues
we could possibly need.
i remove a splinter from 
the ball of my foot. little ladder
little root. i close my eyes
for all needles. like a planet catcher,
i have no time for miniatures.
give me all your largest ornaments.
this year, apples grow to the size
of babies heads. a pumpkin
snores & swells as big as any father.
you sleep soundlessly. grave dug
in your mouth while i ponder
the depths of a lemon seed.
i wrap myself in grape leaves.
you told me children are better
than adults at the apocalypse.
adults only care about not dying.
that we're past the point 
of atonement. i disagree i just want
to be held like blown glass. 
my dating profile
asked "what are your little pleasures?"
i listed: thumbs, spoons,
& the always impending new year. 
nothing is small anymore. if i could sleep
until my loneliness is over then
wake up in a bed of men
doing each other's makeup, i would 
be healed. lush with company. they promise
a sleepover just happened 
& i dozed through it.
they love me still. paint my face
lavender. bruise-blue lips.
the river is never friendless 
or loverless. down there 
it's memories could swallow us whole.
bodies in the water. the hope
of a shark. dipped oar. escape.