currency 

i discovered her envelope of 20$ bills
when i lived with my grandmother.
they were soft & folded away
in one of the dozens of drawers.
her tilted wooden dresser. she was at church.
she was probably praying for me
while i reached my hands
inside the house. the blue shutters
blinked knowingly. 
i counted three pictures of jesus &
five of mary. two statues of god.
put her clip on earrings in my palm 
like i'd foraged them. smooth fake pearls
& pinwheeling trinkets. all i know about her
comes from that one morning. she folded her hands
in her lap. she prayed the rosary at 6am 
each day. she used the pink sugar substitute.
that summer i lived there i slept in the guest room.
it had been unused for decades. dust flourished
on every counter. we drank coffee together
in the rec room. bitter coffee
broiled in the old white coffee machine,
stained around all the edges.
i didn't miss home at all. i pretended
i was much older & she was my mother. 
told myself i was caring for her instead of the truth
which was we were filling the space
between our two bodies with mystery.
sometimes she walked in my room
without notice & there i'd be
sitting on the floor like a lost
piece of furniture. i stole one of the bills.
folded it & stuck it in my bra
as if she would search my pockets.
she would never go through my things
like i did hers or would she? 
i didn't know the half of her impulses.
i'm lying though, i took three 20$ bills.
i could have taken more. i wanted to.
was i greedy? i tell myself
the job paid minimum. july was
severing me. outside, even the bees
in the crab apple tree talked about my debts.
i don't know where i spent them.
we continued our patterns. i stayed up
past her & skimmed to the television 
for anything at all to watch. 
i still wonder, did she know? 

train held between 23rd & 34th st

we saw a rat the size of god.
i removed all the bones 
from my feet. the power went out
& we reverted back 
to candles. the sun, a forgotten thing.
i saw a solar eclipse when i was little.
we watched out a friend's playroom window.
you can invent memories. i am not sure
if this is one of those. watching
as a great dark circle slide across the sun
like a lid over a jar of strawberry jam.
darkness falling over a toy castle.
we're also mostly plastic. 
our parts are not safe for children.
all the "you"s i usually employ in a poem
jumped out the window & like a bird
i sang "i i i." until i was full
of fog. a delay is never simple 
in a matrix of rails. this train
eats the next train. above 
there was no more city. in the future 
i am trying to smoke on the porch
of a house in the country.
the leaves are changing. the only train
is a steam engine for sight-seeing.
the tourist in me is always hoping
for a new ticket. grasping
the silver pole descending 
from any given ceiling. 
why didn't we hold each other? what makes
another body a stranger? 
tin can full of sardine people. 
don't talk to lamp posts or midnights.
a man hummed as if we were all
harmonica columns. what will we do
when we escape? grasped for schedules.
i am already 
yearning for the past where
the sun is blotted out &
i stare at a small army. 
take me back down. i need to worship.

on leaving every poetry reading early

my feet are guilty implements.
the sidewalk magazine-glossy with winter.
i miss the city with all my body-- i miss it
despite rolling inside like
a marble. in the room, everyone's mouths
were front doors. glasses full 
& lips rushing forward. my nights 
burn themselves home.
a merry-go-round heart. whose staircase
taught you how to cry? whose
subway stop is this? not mine. 
whose fire escape?
everyone's bodies warm
with electricity. the body is
full of it. little light bulb humans.
a strong galloping wind asterisks my hair 
before i go underneath. 
i told her not to follow me,
to let me take the trains alone.
i always leave alone like this.
standing right behind the yellow line
waiting for a monster 
to encourage my distances.
robot voice humming us. traveler traveler
with a huge (empty) suitcase
& three girls eating their own hands.
soon we will all be silences
or windowsills or whatever
our eyelids do with our thoughts.
i want a nice kitchen to hover in
& at least a sofa. when i leave like this
i get to imagine everyone else
still there as we were. still aching
in a dim room. still passing
a graveling microphone.
tables turning into pendants.
it is selfish i know to want
to preserve every memory. i ignore 
change & dissolution in favor
of still lives. as long as 
we don't leave together
i can leave everyone else there
all night if i have to. 
train windows are the only mirrors.
i peer at myself 
& the row across from me.
every symmetry is a betrayal. every train stop
a little kingdom in the night.
bodies exit the train. bodies enter.
dress shoes. suitcases. 
backpacks stuffed with apples. 
a shopping bag rustling.
when my stop comes
i'll linger on the platform 
until the train 
is just a glint.

piles of leaves

i learned color this autumn for the first time
looking up at the long-legged mountains as they
blushed. every tree undressing for the cold.
i used to have a pair
of my grandmother's orange gloves. she was a tree.
i cut the fingers off. they still smelled
like rose & cigarettes no matter 
how many times i washed them. my mom had asked
"do you want any of her clothes." none of them fit me.
again, she was a tree.
today, i saw a dead tree in the forest twisted 
among the living ones pretending 
to still have leaves. my hair is turning
red & orange & yellow. the dead tree
was putting on a good show. all the leaves
are dead or dying. soon they will be brown
& coiled like dead spiders.
i killed a spider by accident below
the sink. i wanted to see him 
grow old with me. around here,
people say, "the leaves are turning"
& "the leaves are changing." 
i imagine those words used for people.
my grandmother turned. my grandmother changed.
i knew little about here
so this is not an elegy. burry me soon
just up to my ankles. i would like
to be a tree too. it is already starting.
i pluck red red leaves like scabs
from the insides of my thighs.
unlike us, the trees crave 
the naked cold. in january, through 
a early snow, they will forget
they ever had gloves. for now,
i have piles of leaves to wade through.
sometimes the leaves become
dead people's hats & dead people's gloves
& dead people' houses & dead people shoes.
autumn is not only about ending
but also the pageant there.
the dead tree laughs like a hyphen.
my grandmother's gloves in the pile.
i'm sweeping the leaves carried in
on the bottoms of my shoes
from my hall each night
to make a pile just for myself.

letting my phone die on the way home 

you know too many specifics
about the world & where i was going.
i told you here is the door
to a dark room full of glasses
& you said walk a block walk a block
walk a block. all around people 
are becoming figures 
& you are turning in for the night.
o quiet fragment. o electric mirror.
you take a picture of me
as if this train were headed
towards the ocean, ready to dip
into the water. drowning occurs 
in different ways to all passengers.
what does anyone do 
with their face?
their hands? i press an open palm
to the cool window. november
takes everything & leaves only bone. 
a ghost sits next to me. i am lucky
to have a window seat. 
my backpack is a child. i cradle
the tender part of myself in there.
we slip into 
our own private thought libraries
or maybe just our collections of shelves.
even cities are towns. when will
i unlearn how i miss the present?
i'm yearning for the touch
of each street. i'm dreaming of living
across the city. spread thin
as a veil. a billowing girl again.
let me emblem myself. logo of a deep autumn wind. 
streak of purple. violet moon.
without your truths i am free
for the moment. rest easy
there is an umbilical chord waiting
for all of us tonight.
stop pretending you are happy
with your thumbs. i remove 
my whole life & sew up the day.
there you float in your knowing bliss.
pressed to my hip in my pocket.
flightless organ. dead bird.
clouds curtain 
any hint of star.

based on a true story 

a house's geometry sometimes invites 
the haunting. all summer my brother & i
watched A Haunting Story, a ghost show
on the SciFi channel. it was summer.
outside everything melted.
we were safe in front of the swamp cooler
where we worshipped cool air.
in this episode a family moves in
to a beautiful new house. everyone 
no matter how old they are, craves
a new house. i thought 
of the houses on laurel avenue in town.
all their clear what walls & their 
light carpets. i had a friend who lived there
& i envied her house's emptiness.
our house was a nest
of clutter & color. in the show,
hauntings start the moment the family arrives.
blood from faucets. a dark figure
in the tall glass windows. 
they don't understand. they are
the first family to own this house.
my childhood home was built
in the 1800s. there is an early sketch of it
framed & laying in the hallway. 
a medium arrives & presses her hands
to the bones of the house.
my brother coves his face.
he tells me he can't watch anymore.
being the older sibling,
i tell him it's just a tv show
& is not real at all. though, we both know
the opening credits always say
"based on a true story." the medium says
sometimes a houses geometry
invites a haunting--the angles 
& edges beg spirits to arrive.
i don't remember how it ends 
but i remember fearing every structure
when i build play houses or when 
i moved my bookshelf even an inch 
to the right. everything felt suddenly
delicate. one wrong alignment
could bring a haunting to our house.
my brother asked me
"what part of the story do you think
was real?" i shook my head
& i told him "probably none of it"
as an act of mercy though at night
i would worry about future homes.
i thanked our house's oldness.
the pipes that cracked their knuckles 
in the night. the sketch in the hall. 
the two old trees in the front yard 
standing like guardians. 
all the haunted houses on laurel street
thankfully, blocks & blocks away. 

what will the sandbox hole bring us?

children gather to dig.
their soft hands gripping
the necks of plastic shovels.
at the park it is dusk 
& the sporadic lamps come on.
moths bring their mandolins 
& sing about forgettable May.
spring could not imagine
this thick November.
dew on grass. winter is coming
& some kids wear coats while others
just wear goosebumps like charm bracelets.
no one is a boy or a girl 
at this time of day. just workers. 
methodical in their motions.
everyone has the same question
in their throats: does the sandbox
have a bottom? if so, 
what sleeps down there? what 
bones? what books? what secret?
the playground clouds with static.
a television plays behind 
each child's eyes. scooping sand.
sand parting. reaching the wet layer.
rich damp sand. squeezing
between their fingers & feeling
ancient. the children are aware
their parents are far away now
with their land of counter tops.
they don't know anything
about digging. the hole 
is widening. it's big enough
for one child to crouch inside.
they take turns being consumed 
by their crater. even the trees
are jealous of the children's work.
night falls. no one is alive.
skeleton children. ghost children.
all children are ghost children.
what business did we have 
with flesh? when was my last
haunting night? when did i last
dig like this. it can always
get deeper. another shovel.
another scoop. they don't give up.
there is no bottom. scraping dirt now.
on into the earth's crust
down towards the hot churning mantel.
shovelfuls of molten red. children laughing.
melting like wax. the hole impossibly clear
moving onward down to the core
where all the children will gaze
into that white of this private star.
diminished to nothing 
but glossy stones. what do we know
of digging? the hole stands there.
all holes are mouths. all mouths
lead down to the core. 
one child, smooth as can be,
goes to the jungle gym
& slides easily down the twisty slide.
falls down in the mulch.
the children wander home. moths
continue to play until they die.

clone

if i had a clone 
i would send her to do 
all the terrible things for me.
she would stand in long grocery lines
& she would shave her head
so i could see what i look like.
they clone all kinds of animals these days.
if my dog dies i will have her cloned
so as to stave off 
some specific fragment of grief.
a sheep stares into the eyes
of its clone. is a clone
a replica or a reconstruction?
my clone is taking a walk on the beach.
i am giving her a brief. my clone
is not transgender seeing as 
biology is expensive. 
i wanted my clone to have
all my blood memories but she knows 
very little of our body. 
they clone cows & pigs too-- 
harvest skin cells to build 
the mirror animal. somewhere 
a farm emerges of only clones.
the animals walk in unison. hooves
in the mud. now my clone is eating pasta
& she's reading a book i've never read.
i am so jealous of her
with all that whimsy. she's content
to just move like a windmill.
if there was a clone
of my clone would it still
be me? is destroying your own clone
a form of self-harm?
don't worry i'm just curious.
i do love her in the way
someone might love
a smooth rock. she is sleeping
on the couch with a throw blanket.
i am petting her hair.
there, there clone. it is alright.
you grew up inside 
a little tube. i grew up
in a backyard of bright glass.
when you wake up you will have to
go to a wedding for me
& i'll be here with 
all the sheep. 

heat

the heat swarmed in our old apartment.
each room, little toaster ovens.
i peeled off my clothes behind my door.
me: a rack of roasting ribs. 
the neighbors had the only thermometer 
so we baked at their will. 
i wondered what kind of air they craved.
did they miss july? did they 
boil water to furnish the ceiling
with clouds? were we just 
less imaginative? heat is always
artificial. dried our skin to paper.
vitamin e lotion on the kitchen counter.
i miss that place despite its clear discomforts.
am i doomed to a life of retrospective longing?
maybe that is just what it means
to be a poet. the heat made me want to 
peel off my body. the heat painted me 
star-eyed & languid. the heat 
scooped my eyes from my skull.
harvest my tongue. cooked my bones.
i opened the windows 
& let cool january swing in.
one night, before you came home,
i had the apartment to myself
& i was a ghost in the hallway.
sweat crowned my forehead. i walked
an inch above the ground. all tropical 
in my swelter. i did yoga 
with your yoga mat in the living room
& dreamed of spring 
when the church up the street 
would plant daffodils again. 
the cool air was only a ribbon.
just enough. the sound of the train
moaned, reminding me 
of geography's loud permanence
& my own transience.

watching benny cook chicken

she pries pink flesh from plastic.
two breasts. meat & muscles
once shuddering in their own quickness.
a world of chickens & all their chicken worries.
will my feet pierce the earth? will my face
come undone?
flightless creature. supermarket glow.
the timer above the stove. she is making chili
like so does on some sundays. 
our only pan. a drip of clear golden 
vegetable oil. i am doing absolutely nothing
in my room but smelling each step.
all sundays are hopeless like this--
like the horizon is only sinew.
pan's heat rising. benny chops onions
& peppers on the wooden cutting board.
each knife-fall gives a thwack.
we are always cutting down trees.
outside the city is quiet & warm.
soon it will be february & then march
& then more forever after that.
for now it is only january. 
meat turns pale against heat.
turns the breast over. a last 
little flight. somewhere chicken 
gossip about fate. benny & i
we talk about poets & wanting 
to write our names somewhere tangible.
i say the wall of the subway car
& she says a paper plate.
of course we are not speaking aloud.
her body moves. she is consulting chicken.
meat loosening its grip.
the last vestiges of a body & an animal. 
were we animals once too?
she is covering the pot of ingredients 
& humming to herself.